Motion tracking for medical imaging
First Claim
1. A method for tracking motion of a tissue object region of interest in medical imaging, the method comprising:
- (a) identifying the tissue object region of interest in a first image;
(b) estimating a velocity for at least one location associated with the tissue object region of interest; and
(c) determining a position of the tissue object region of interest in a second image as a function of the velocity, the first image acquired at a different time than the second image.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Motion of a region of interest is tracked in medical imaging. For example, velocity information, such as colored Doppler velocity estimates independent of tracking from one image to another image, are used to indicate an amount of motion between the images. The velocity assisted tracking may be used for one dimensional tracking (e.g., for M-mode images), for tracking in two dimensional images, or for tracking between three dimensional representations. As an alternative or additional example, physiological signal information is used to assist in the tracking determination. A physiological signal may be used to model the likely movement of an organ being imaged to control or adjust matching search patterns and limits. The modeling may also be used to independently determine movement or for tracking. The independently determined tracking is then combined with tracking based on medical data or other techniques. The cost function or other metric for determining the sufficiency or a match may include information modeled from or selected as a function of the physiological cycle signal in addition to other matching calculations. The fusion of physiological signal information with image data tracking may improve the tracking.
100 Citations
29 Claims
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1. A method for tracking motion of a tissue object region of interest in medical imaging, the method comprising:
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(a) identifying the tissue object region of interest in a first image;
(b) estimating a velocity for at least one location associated with the tissue object region of interest; and
(c) determining a position of the tissue object region of interest in a second image as a function of the velocity, the first image acquired at a different time than the second image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 29)
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12. A system for tracking motion of a tissue object region of interest in medical imaging, the system comprising:
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a display operable to display a sequence of images;
a memory operable to store an identification of the tissue object region of interest in a first image of the sequence of images;
a velocity estimate processor operable to estimate a velocity for at least one location associated with the tissue object region of interest; and
a further processor operable to determine a position of the tissue object region of interest in a second image of the sequence of images as a function of the velocity, the first image acquired at a different time than the second image. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15)
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16. A method for tracking a region of interest in medical imaging, the method comprising:
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(a) identifying the region of interest in a first image;
(b) obtaining a physiological cycle signal; and
(c) determining a first position of the region of interest in a second image as a function of the physiological cycle signal, the second image different than the first image. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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26. A method for tracking a region of interest in medical imaging, the method comprising:
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(a) obtaining a first estimate of a position of a region of interest in a first image relative to a second image as a function of a first type of data;
(b) obtaining a second estimate of the position of the region of interest in the first image relative to the second image as a function of a second type of data different than the first type of data; and
(c) identifying the position as a function of the first and second estimates. - View Dependent Claims (27, 28)
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Specification