Improvements in Automated Tools for Foot & Ankle Measurements on Weight Bearing CT

At the International Weight Bearing CT Society (WBCT) session during the 2024 European Foot & Ankle Society congress in Brussels, Martinus Richter, MD, PhD, an orthopedic surgeon from the Department of Foot and Ankle Surgery at Rummelsberg Hospital in Schwarzenbruck, Germany, shared insights on methods to make automatic angle measurements on WBCT scans . Dr. Richter has been utilizing WBCT technology since 2013, performing over 22,000 scans and treating patients ranging from five years old to over 100.

Dr. Richter has tested several iterations of CurveBeam AI’s CubeVue Autometrics platform, a software that provides AI-informed measurements of the foot and ankle from weight bearing CT imaging data. Autometrics is investigational only and is not available for sale. Early iterations struggled with segmentation, particularly in identifying different bones, which impacted the accuracy of measurements. Thanks to advancements in Autometrics’ AI algorithms, he was able to use the same data sets with the same patients that were measured before and get clinically valid results – there were no statistically significant differences across the 2,500 angles compared.

With different AI softwares there’s plenty of space to grow.. Dr. Richter said he looks forward to the potential to expand into more complex applications such as joint surface mapping, joint congruencies, and full limb alignment including total knee and hip analysis.