Ishtiaque Hossain, September 2010--April 2012, "Semi-automatic Assessment of Hyoid Bone Motion in Digital Video Fluoroscopic Images", Computer Science Department, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

M.Sc. Thesis Abstract

The swallowing process is more complex than it seems to the plain sight. It involves triggering the movements of a number of muscles in the throat in order to transport the food from the mouth to the stomach successfully and at the same time preventing it from getting into the airway and the lung. In order to detect abnormalities in the swallowing process, radiologists use a technique called Videofluoroscopic Swallowing Study. It is a video footage consisting of X-ray images that are taken while the patient swallows food, which is later visually inspected by the radiologist to assess the level of the patient's swallowing ability. It has been reported that measuring the movement of the hyoid bone plays an important role in the assessment of a swallowing study. As current practice, inspections are performed visually and radiologists have difficulty reaching a unanimous decision about the outcome of the evaluation. In this research, a semi-automatic method is proposed which allows the radiologist to track the hyoid bone and measure its movement.