Data mining in medicine: relationship of scoliotic spine curvature to the movement sequence of lateral bending positions

We aim to determine relationships between scoliotic spine curvatures in movement sequence from left bending to erect to right bending positions in the frontal plane. A multi-body kinematic modelling approach is utilized to reconstruct the curvatures and study the relationships. The spine is considered as a chain of micro-scale motion-segments (MMSs). Linear regression method is adopted to identify relationships between angles of MMSs in erect and lateral bending positions. Excellent linear relationships (R2 = 0.93 ± 0.09) were identified between angles of MMSs placed between each two successive vertebrae. We showed that these relationships give good estimates of the curvatures (Root-mean-square-error = 0.0172 ± 0.0114 mm) and the key parameters for scoliosis surgery planning; estimation errors for Cobb angle, spinal mobility, and flexibility were 0.0016 ± 0.0122°, 0.0010 ± 0.086°, and 0.0002 ± 0.0002 respectively. This paper provides an important insight: scoliotic spine curvatures in lateral bending positions and the key parameters for surgery planning can be predicted using spine curvature in erect position.