MRI based visualization and evaluation of carpal tunnel syndrome

Abstract

This work presents a software tool for interactive visualization and enhanced evaluation of the carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), based on MRI. CTS is one of the most common peripheral neuropathies due to the compression of the median nerve. The software provides a fully scalable real-time 3D reconstruction of the tendons and the median nerve, allowing multiplanar reformatting, realistic visualization of the integrity of myelin sheath, and color enhancement, without the use of contrast agents. Provided metrics and measurement tools for different parameters, including median nerve location, size, flattening, but also nerve adjacency and local deformation shape measures were also evaluated and the results are presented. © 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH.