Advanced Detection Technique of Intramedullary Tumors in the Spine: Feasibility and Optimization Strategies

Intramedullary spinal cord tumors (IMSCTs) are rare neoplasms that arise within the spinal cord, posing significant diagnostic and treatment challenges. These tumors lead to morbidity and mortality. Early and accurate detection of IMSCTs is crucial for effective intervention and improved patient outcomes. Using image processing methods on MRI proposes a unique method for diagnosing intramedullary spinal cord tumors early. MATLAB is utilized for the development and implementation of this method. The suggested approach leverages the capabilities of image processing algorithms to examine and extract useful data from MRI films. An extensive pre-processing phase is employed to enhance the quality of the MRI images. Subsequently, the spinal cord region is separated by applying an improved segmentation technique. This is followed by edge detection, which identifies the rapid changes in pixel intensity corresponding to tumor boundaries and differentiates the tumor region from the surrounding healthy tissue. Thus, the proposed method leads to superior detection efficiency of tumors compared to the conventional techniques.