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Updated: Aug 24, 2025
A Spine Robotic-Assisted Navigation System for Pedicle Screw Placement
Published on: May 11, 2020
Comparison of ultrasound scanning for scoliosis assessment: Robotic versus manual
Maria Victorova1, Heidi Hin Ting Lau1, Timothy Tin-Yan Lee1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Background:
Ultrasound (US) imaging for scoliosis assessment is challenging for a non-experienced operator. The robotic scanning was developed to follow a spinal curvature with deep learning and apply consistent forces to the patient's back.
Methods:
Twenty three scoliosis patients were scanned with US device both, robotically and manually. Two human raters measured each subject's spinous process angles on robotic and manual coronal images.
Results:
The robotic method showed high intra- (ICC > 0.85) and inter-rater (ICC > 0.77) reliabilities. Compared with the manual method, the robotic approach showed no significant difference (p < 0.05) when measuring coronal deformity angles. The mean absolute deviation for intra-rater analysis lies within an acceptable range from 0 to 5° for the minimum of 86% and maximum 97% of a total number of the measured angles.
Conclusions:
This study demonstrated that scoliosis deformity angles measured on ultrasound images obtained with robotic scanning are comparable to those obtained by manual scanning.
