The Virtual Skeleton Database: An Open Access Repository for Biomedical Research and Collaboration

Kistler, Michael; Bonaretti, Serena; Pfahrer, Marcel; Niklaus, Roman; Büchler, Philippe (2013). The Virtual Skeleton Database: An Open Access Repository for Biomedical Research and Collaboration. Journal of medical internet research, 15(11), e245. Centre of Global eHealth Innovation 10.2196/jmir.2930

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Background: Statistical shape models are widely used in biomedical research. They are routinely implemented for automatic image segmentation or object identification in medical images. In these fields, however, the acquisition of the large training datasets, required to develop these models, is usually a time-consuming process. Even after this effort, the collections of datasets are often lost or mishandled resulting in replication of work.

Objective: To solve these problems, the Virtual Skeleton Database (VSD) is proposed as a centralized storage system where the data necessary to build statistical shape models can be stored and shared.

Methods: The VSD provides an online repository system tailored to the needs of the medical research community. The processing of the most common image file types, a statistical shape model framework, and an ontology-based search provide the generic tools to store, exchange, and retrieve digital medical datasets. The hosted data are accessible to the community, and collaborative research catalyzes their productivity.

Results: To illustrate the need for an online repository for medical research, three exemplary projects of the VSD are presented: (1) an international collaboration to achieve improvement in cochlear surgery and implant optimization, (2) a population-based analysis of femoral fracture risk between genders, and (3) an online application developed for the evaluation and comparison of the segmentation of brain tumors.

Conclusions: The VSD is a novel system for scientific collaboration for the medical image community with a data-centric concept and semantically driven search option for anatomical structures. The repository has been proven to be a useful tool for collaborative model building, as a resource for biomechanical population studies, or to enhance segmentation algorithms.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

10 Strategic Research Centers > ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research > ARTORG Center - Computational Bioengineering
04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > Institute for Surgical Technology & Biomechanics ISTB [discontinued]

Graduate School:

Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences (GCB)

UniBE Contributor:

Kistler, Michael, Bonaretti, Serena, Niklaus, Roman, Büchler, Philippe

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

1439-4456

Publisher:

Centre of Global eHealth Innovation

Language:

English

Submitter:

Philippe Büchler

Date Deposited:

12 May 2014 12:09

Last Modified:

08 Jul 2024 07:53

Publisher DOI:

10.2196/jmir.2930

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.43292

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/43292

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