Automated bone age extended up to 19 years

The upcoming release of BoneXpert version 2.4 (version 2.4.5.1, released Dec 28) extends the Greulich-Pyle bone age range up to 19 years for boys and 18 years for girls. Previous versions were less reliable in the bone age range 17-19 for boys and 15-18 for girls. The validation of this extension is reported in the International Journal of Legal Medicine.

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The friendly co-existence of BoneXpert and image post-processing

BoneXpert, version 2, from January 2013 introduced an increased robustness towards image post-processing. More specifically: edge enhancement and contrast amplification. This version made bone age and BHI (Bone Health Index) largely insensitive to image altering operations. This “Topic of Interest” tells the story behind this improvement.

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New thoughtful article in Radiology about CAD

Radiology brings an interesting article entitled “Computer-aided Diagnosis: How to Move from the Laboratory to the Clinic”, which presents a remarkably deep analysis of the current state of CAD (abstract). CAD is considered to have a great future, but a number of hard challenges need to be met. BoneXpert is featured in the article, and this “Topic of interest” post follows up on this honorable mentioning by reviewing the paper and placing BoneXpert in a wider perspective.

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How dangerous is it to eat a banana?

A discussion of the radiation dose of a bone age hand X-ray.

The hazard of ionizing radiation is of great concern in pediatric radiology, but there is a need for a better understanding of the huge differences in the effective doses of various examinations. The effective dose of a pediatric hand X-ray is remarkably small, 0.0001 mSv, equivalent to 1 minute of airline flight. Sometimes this is said to be equivalent to eating a banana, but as explained below, this comparison is flawed.

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