Injuries of the thigh musculature in popular sports such as soccer, which involve repetitive sprinting, jumping and kicking, are common incapacitating conditions with a high recurrence rate. These injuries are often attributed to muscle imbalances (e.g., strength “deficits” / volume “asymmetries”) with chronic / recalcitrant groin and hamstring tears representing clinically significant problems with respect to effective treatment and rehabilitation in amateur and professional athletes alike.

Project Objective

The objective of this project is to extend the utility of clinical MRI examinations of chronic / severe thigh injuries by developing a reliable automated image analysis system to provide quantitative data on muscle volume asymmetry to aid improved decisions on therapeutic treatments and the efficacy of rehabilitation programs for injuries such as groin and hamstring tears.

The development of a fast, automated image analysis system for clinical MRI investigations of thigh muscle asymmetry in injured or at risk athletes presents a considerable array of challenges including:
(i) integration of domain-specific knowledge (e.g., customizing MR imaging protocols to minimise examination times, maximise signal to noise ratios with tailored pulse sequences and parameters and optimise visualization of the thigh musculature; provision of gold-standard segmentations of the anatomically complex mono- and bi-articular thigh muscles);
(ii) development of computationally efficient image processing and analysis software (e.g., specialized bias-field / normalization algorithms; image registration using iterative non-rigid and rigid transformations; robust probability atlases with concomitant 3D statistical shape modelling for segmentation of the thigh musculature to provide data on muscle asymmetries) and,
(iii) implementation of the automated image analysis system for MR investigations of thigh muscle asymmetry using advanced parallel programming approaches (e.g., developing MPI programs to enable rapid clinical analyses using high performance computers such as QCIF’s 64 processor SGI Altix and/or grid computing facilities).

Our industry partners see significant promise for the current project to:
(i) provide innovative radiological services to promote cost-effective, individualized treatment and rehabilitation procedures aimed at improving the clinical management of common musculoskeletal injuries in active and athletic patients (Southernex outcome);
(ii) optimise the medical care of professional athletes in an Australian context and create a state-of-the-art sports medicine program for soccer of national and international importance (Queensland Roar outcome).

Participants