Computer assisted quantification of hyoid bone motion in fluoroscopic videos

The Videofluoroscopic Swallowing Study is a technique commonly used by radiologists to detect abnormalities in the swallowing process. While the subject swallows the food, X-ray images are taken and then compiled in a video form. The video is later analyzed by the radiologist using visual means. Since the nature of the inspection is highly subjective, the result of the inspection can barely be reliable. One of the assessed measures is the elevation of the hyoid bone during the swallow. This research introduces a semi-automatic method which identifies the hyoid bone in fluoroscopic videos and quantifies its motion. Before identifying the hyoid bone, the region-of-interest is automatically identified using a classification-based approach and subsequent image processing procedures are applied to the identified region-of-interest. Results show that the proposed method can accurately quantify the motion of the hyoid bone.