System and method for detecting content in-vivo

• US 20070078300A1
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Published: 04/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Given Imaging Limited (Medtronic Plc)
• Original Assignee: Given Imaging Limited (Medtronic Plc)
• Inventors: Zinaty, Ofra, Lewkowicz, Shlomo, Buzaglo, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 7,567,692 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/102
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/0005 combining images e.g. side-by-side, superimposed or tiled
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/041 Capsule endoscopes for imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30028 Colon; Small intestine
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection

Abstract

A system and method for detecting in-vivo content, may include an in-vivo imaging device for capturing a stream of image frames in a GI tract, a content detector for detecting and/or identifying one or more image frames from the stream of image streams that may show content, and a graphical user interface (GUI) to display image frames detected.

Claims

1. A method for detecting content in-vivo, the method comprising:

capturing at least one image frame from within a body lumen;

processing the image frame, wherein the processing includes at least a first filtering process and a second filtering process; and

identifying content in the image frame.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the content is feces.

3. The method according to claim 1, comprising calculating the percentage of content in the image frame.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the image frame is an image of pixels.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the image is an RGB image.

6. The method according to claim 4, comprising converting the pixels of the image frame to a first and a second three dimensional color space.

7. The method according to claim 6, comprising:

creating a first two dimension graph from the first three dimensional color space, and a second two dimension graph from the second three dimensional color space;

delimiting the first and second graph to a tissue decision zone and a content decision zone;

assigning each pixel in the image of pixels to the first graph; and

assigning a not defined pixel to the second graph.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first filtering process includes filtering bubbles pixels, reflections pixels, luminance pixels and high intensity pixels.

9. The method according to claim 6, wherein the first three dimensional color space is an HSV color space.

10. The method according to claim 6, wherein the second three dimensional color space is an YQI color space.

11. The method according to claim 1, comprising inserting an autonomous imaging device in-vivo.

12. The method according to claim 1, comprising tracking a location of where the at least one image frame was captured.

13. The method according to claim 1 wherein the at least one image frame is an image stream.

14. The method according to claim 9 comprising:

selecting candidate image frames from the image stream; and

displaying the candidate image frames.

15. A system for detecting in-vivo content, the system comprising:

an imaging device;

a receiver; and

a processing unit configured to detect a content in an image of pixels.

16. The system according to claim 15, comprising a spectral analyzer.

17. The system according to claim 15, comprising a decision calculator.

18. The system according to claim 15, comprising a tracking unit.

19. The system according to claim 15 wherein the processing unit is included in the imaging device.

20. The system according to claim 15 wherein the processing unit is included in an external receiving device wherein the external receiving device is to receive data from the imaging device.

21. The system according to claim 15 wherein the imaging device is an autonomous in-vivo device in the form of a capsule.

22. The system according to claim 15, wherein the display is to display a graphical presentation of a percentage of content in the image of pixels.

23. The system according to claim 15, wherein the content is feces.