Analysis of trabecular structure in radiographic bone images using empirical mode decomposition and support vector machines

In this work, an automated analysis of trabecular architecture is carried out using empirical mode decomposition and Support Vector Machines (SVM). The trabecular regions of normal and abnormal human femur bone images (N=40) recorded under standard condition are used for this study. The compressive region in the images are delineated and decomposed into their corresponding intrinsic mode functions using Bi-dimensional Empirical Mode Decomposition (BEMD) method. The characteristic feature vectors are extracted and further subjected to classification using SVM. Results show that BEMD analysis combined with SVM could differentiate normal and abnormal images. As the strength of the bone depends on architectural variation in addition to bone mass, this study seems to be clinically useful.