Automatic measurement of orbital volume in unilateral coronal synostosis

Premature fusion of the coronal suture on one side of the calvaria (unilateral coronal synostosis, UCS) results in asymmetric craniofacial development and the deformation of the orbits. Often this necessitates surgery, where CT scanning is employed to obtain measures of the bony orbit. These measures are typically computed by guided procedures that require expert time. We propose a method with higher degree of automation based on finding an optimal smooth closed surface. CT scans of 17 infants with UCS are included in our experimental validation, where we compare our method to expert guided segmentations. We obtain similar measures, as well as high Dice scores, compared to the experts. The run time for the proposed approach with a prototype implementation is around 3 minutes on a standard laptop, making the method suitable for rapid evaluation of orbital volume in UCS.