Funding outcome

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is the lateral curvature of the spine coupled with axial vertebral rotation. It affects approximately 3% of children and most are adolescent girls. Since the progression of scoliosis is difficult to predict, clinicians always request an x-ray during the clinic to determine if the curves have progressed or not. However, Soucacos et al. reported that only 14.7% of scoliotic cases would progress which means most patients receive unnecessary ionizing radiation. Although the EOS imaging system being used for imaging scoliosis in Edmonton is a low-dose radiation system, the effect of the accumulated ionizing radiation is still believed to increase the risk of cancer. Dr. Lou's team has developed a novel method based on ultrasound imaging to diagnose and monitor scoliosis. Recently, he developed a new approach based on the bone quality information from the spine to predict the progression of scoliosis. A preliminary study and the results have demonstrated a potential non-invasive method to predict progression of scoliosis. This study is to determine the reliability and accuracy of measuring bone quality information from the collected ultrasound data using an in-house developed software. The correlation of the risk of progression with the bone quality measurement will be performed in order to determine whether bone quality information from ultrasound can be used to non-invasively and accurately predict the risk of scoliosis curve progression.