Automated extraction method of bone tunnel after the anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction from a knee MDCT image by using fuzzy inference

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) plays important role as a preventing excessive anterior movement of the knee. When the ACL is injured, ACL reconstruction is often performed. In ACL reconstruction, bone tunnels of the femur and tibia are made for passing graft to the bone. It is reported that the bone tunnel is usually enlargement. The bone tunnel enlargement affects much knee function. In serious case, ACL reconstruction should be required again. Therefore evaluation of the bone tunnel is important. However, it has not been analyzed in 3D image, because the bone tunnel is unclear at distal region in MDCT image. To overcome this problem, this study proposed extraction method with fuzzy inference. As a result, our proposed method could detect bone tunnel region. Then, the bone tunnel enlargement was examined. A future work is to specify the enlarge part within the extract volume.