Method for segmenting arteries and veins

• US 20070177785A1
• Filed: 01/31/2006
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MeVis Medical Solutions AG (Varex Imaging Corporation)
• Original Assignee: MeVis Medical Solutions, Inc. (Varex Imaging Corporation)
• Inventors: Raffy, Philippe
• Granted Patent: US 7,876,936 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/131
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30101 Blood vessel; Artery; Vein; Vascular
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

In a preferred embodiment a radiologist traces the pulmonary artery and pulmonary veins visible in a set of CT images and identifies the arteries and veins. The radiologist'"'"'s identification of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins is then received by an image analyzer and combined with the analyzer'"'"'s identification of the pulmonary arteries to form a combined identification; and the analyzer then reviews this combined identification of the pulmonary arteries to detect any pulmonary embolisms. The radiologist'"'"'s identification of any pulmonary embolisms is compared with the analyzer'"'"'s identification of any pulmonary embolisms to determine if there are any embolisms identified by the analyzer that were not identified by the radiologist.

Claims

1. A method of processing a series of computer tomography (CT) sections of a pulmonary region to separate pulmonary arteries from pulmonary veins comprising:

receiving a radiologist'"'"'s identification of elements of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins visible in the CT sections;

combining the radiologist'"'"'s identification with a computer-aided identification of elements of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins in the CT sections, to produce a combined identification of the elements of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins; and

using the combined identification of the elements of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins to segment the pulmonary arteries from the pulmonary veins.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of scanning the pulmonary arteries for an embolism.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of comparing a location of a pulmonary embolism identified by a radiologist with a location of a pulmonary embolism identified by the scanning step.

4. A method of processing a series of computer tomography (CT) sections of a pulmonary region to separate pulmonary arteries from pulmonary veins comprising:

receiving a radiologist'"'"'s identification of elements of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins visible in the CT sections;

combining the radiologist'"'"'s identification with a computer-aided identification of elements of a vascular structure in the CT sections, to produce a combined identification of the elements of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins; and

using the combined identification of the elements of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins to segment the pulmonary arteries from the pulmonary veins.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising the step of scanning the pulmonary arteries for an embolism.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising the step of comparing a location of a pulmonary embolism identified by a radiologist with a location of a pulmonary embolism identified by the scanning step.

7. A method of computer processing a series of computer tomography (CT) sections of a pulmonary region to separate pulmonary arteries from pulmonary veins comprising:

receiving a radiologist'"'"'s identification of elements of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins visible in the CT sections;

using the radiologist'"'"'s identification to identify the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins in a computer-generated representation of the pulmonary arteries and veins; and

using the identification of the pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins to segment the pulmonary arteries from the pulmonary veins.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising the step of scanning the pulmonary arteries for an embolism.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising the step of comparing a location of a pulmonary embolism identified by a radiologist with a location of a pulmonary embolism identified by the scanning step.

10. A method for interactive computer-aided detection in a lung volume, comprising:

a. automatically segmenting lung artery tissue and lung vein tissue from the lung volume;

b. displaying a three-dimensional representation of the lung volume including the segmented lung artery and lung vein tissue;

c. facilitating interactive tracing of a lung artery tree of interest in the three-dimensional representation while keeping track of the traced lung artery tree; and

d. performing automated abnormality detection on the traced lung artery tree, whereby the abnormality detection results are free of false positive detections that may be associated with lung vein tissue.