gms | German Medical Science

79th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

30.04. - 04.05.2008, Bonn

A high resolution anatomic atlas of the human inner ear, with open-source products for 64-bit processing

Meeting Abstract

  • corresponding author Frank Schwarm - 4D-Visualisation Laboratory, University Clinic of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Innsbruck, Austria
  • Andreas Pühringer - 4D-Visualisation Laboratory, University Clinic of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Innsbruck, Austria
  • Georgi Diakov - 4D-Visualisation Laboratory, University Clinic of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Innsbruck, Austria
  • Özgür Güler - 4D-Visualisation Laboratory, University Clinic of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Innsbruck, Austria
  • Florian Kral - 4D-Visualisation Laboratory, University Clinic of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Innsbruck, Austria
  • Wolfgang Freysinger - 4D-Visualisation Laboratory, University Clinic of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Innsbruck, Austria

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. 79th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. Bonn, 30.04.-04.05.2008. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2008. Doc08hno34

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/hno2008/08hno34.shtml

Published: July 8, 2008

© 2008 Schwarm et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

Text

Introduction: The human inner ear has a complex anatomy. With histologic devices important structures are often destroyed. We have created a 3D-atlas of the middle ear for the clinical practice in oto-rhino-laryngology.

Methods: A human cochlea, explanted in the Laboratory for Immunology of the Inner Ear was researched. The so prepared cadaver was scanned with the synchrotron-radiation micro CT facility in HASYLAB at DESY in Hamburg. An isotropic in x-, y- and z-directions resolution of 6 µm was achieved.

The high-resolution dataset, consisting of 1024 slices, 2.3 MB each, was segmented in a fully 64-bit processing environment. The 3D-Slicer was compiled in 64-bit under Yellow Dog Linux 4.1, installed on an Apple G5 platform: dual 2.7 GHz processor, 8 GB RAM, and ATI Radeon 9650 256 MB graphics card.

Results: The need to handle the huge dataset resulted in the first compilation of 3D-Slicer for the above described platform. The dataset was segmented and a 3D-model of the inner ear was generated, which lead to an atlas, containing anatomical structures, presented at cellular level, such as the Reissner membrane, tectorial membrane, basal lamina, Nuel space, spiral osseus lamina, vascular stria, cochlear nerve. The user can interactively use the model - turn, zoom and move it.

Discussion: The atlas has made the complex anatomy of the human inner ear available for interactive stereoscopic view for the first time. The high resolution of the dataset was preserved in the 3D-model, for exploration of the inner ear at cellular level.