Preliminary Planning for a Multi-institutional Database for Ultrasound Bone Segmentation

Ultrasound (US) bone segmentation is a key component in many US-based computer assisted orthopaedic systems. Although numerous US bone segmentations techniques exist, there remains no direct way of comparing their performances. This is primarily due to the lack of an accessible US bone image database, and secondly due to a lack of standard vali- dation practices. To address this issue, we are beginning a multi-institutional international collaboration across multiple research centres with the aim of creating an open database for US bone segmentation consisting of several thousand US images and corresponding bone surface segmentations. Our collaboration also aims to address outstanding issues in US bone segmentation, such as determining the reliability of manual segmentations and establishing a set of evaluation metrics which should be reported in future segmentation studies. Finally, we strongly encourage interested researchers to join and contribute to this project as this will help to create a more diverse database and knowledgeable collaboration.