Dysmorphometrics: the Modelling of Morphological Abnormalities

Overview

Journal Theor Biol Med Model

Publisher Biomed Central

Date 2012 Feb 8

PMID 22309623

Citations 13

Authors

Peter Claes

Katleen Daniels

Mark Walters

John Clement

Dirk Vandermeulen

Paul Suetens

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: The study of typical morphological variations using quantitative, morphometric descriptors has always interested biologists in general. However, unusual examples of form, such as abnormalities are often encountered in biomedical sciences. Despite the long history of morphometrics, the means to identify and quantify such unusual form differences remains limited.

Methods: A theoretical concept, called dysmorphometrics, is introduced augmenting current geometric morphometrics with a focus on identifying and modelling form abnormalities. Dysmorphometrics applies the paradigm of detecting form differences as outliers compared to an appropriate norm. To achieve this, the likelihood formulation of landmark superimpositions is extended with outlier processes explicitly introducing a latent variable coding for abnormalities. A tractable solution to this augmented superimposition problem is obtained using Expectation-Maximization. The topography of detected abnormalities is encoded in a dysmorphogram.

Results: We demonstrate the use of dysmorphometrics to measure abrupt changes in time, asymmetry and discordancy in a set of human faces presenting with facial abnormalities.

Conclusion: The results clearly illustrate the unique power to reveal unusual form differences given only normative data with clear applications in both biomedical practice & research.

Citing Articles

Three-Dimensional Geometric Morphometric Characterization of Facial Sexual Dimorphism in Juveniles.

Solazzo R, Cappella A, Gibelli D, Dolci C, Tartaglia G, Sforza C Diagnostics (Basel). 2025; 15(3).

PMID: 39941324 PMC: 11817074. DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics15030395.

Large-scale open-source three-dimensional growth curves for clinical facial assessment and objective description of facial dysmorphism.

Matthews H, Palmer R, Baynam G, Quarrell O, Klein O, Spritz R Sci Rep. 2021; 11(1):12175.

PMID: 34108542 PMC: 8190313. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-91465-z.

Pitfalls and Promise of 3-dimensional Image Comparison for Craniofacial Surgical Assessment.

Matthews H, Burge J, Verhelst P, Politis C, Claes P, Penington A Plast Reconstr Surg Glob Open. 2020; 8(5):e2847.

PMID: 33154878 PMC: 7605870. DOI: 10.1097/GOX.0000000000002847.

3D assessment of mandibular skeletal effects produced by the Herbst appliance.

Fan Y, Schneider P, Matthews H, Roberts W, Xu T, Wei R BMC Oral Health. 2020; 20(1):117.

PMID: 32299402 PMC: 7164294. DOI: 10.1186/s12903-020-01108-4.

Separating positional noise from neutral alignment in multicomponent statistical shape models.

Audenaert E, Van den Eynde J, de Almeida D, Steenackers G, Vandermeulen D, Claes P Bone Rep. 2020; 12:100243.

PMID: 32181268 PMC: 7063239. DOI: 10.1016/j.bonr.2020.100243.

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