Method and system for improved image segmentation
First Claim
1. A method of identifying anatomical structures in a patient, the method comprising:
- acquiring an image of the patient, the image comprising a set of image elements;
segmenting the image to categorize at least some image elements according to their substance;
aligning the segmented image to an anatomical atlas;
computing the probability that the categorization of the image elements is correct; and
resegmenting the image emphasizing image elements based on their probabilities.
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Abstract
A system and method of identifying anatomical structures in a patient. The method includes the acts of acquiring an image of the patient, the image including a set of image elements; segmenting the image to categorize each image elements according to its substance; computing the probability that the categorization of each image element is correct; resegmenting the image starting with image elements that have a high probability and progressing to image elements with lower probabilities; aligning at least one of the image elements with an anatomical atlas; and fitting the anatomical atlas to the segmented image.
232 Citations
32 Claims
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1. A method of identifying anatomical structures in a patient, the method comprising:
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acquiring an image of the patient, the image comprising a set of image elements; segmenting the image to categorize at least some image elements according to their substance; aligning the segmented image to an anatomical atlas; computing the probability that the categorization of the image elements is correct; and resegmenting the image emphasizing image elements based on their probabilities. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. In a radiation therapy system, a method of automatically identifying anatomical structures in a patient, the method comprising:
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acquiring an image of the patient; segmenting the image using a hierarchical series of image processing steps to identify landmarks in the image; and identifying the anatomical structures using the landmarks. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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25. A method of segmenting an image of a patient to identify the tissue class of each image element in the image, the method comprising:
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analyzing each image element using a set of rules to determine a probability of each image element being a given tissue class; aligning an anatomical atlas to the image; refining the tissue probabilities of each image element based on the atlas; and fitting a mesh to the image elements based on the probabilities, the mesh representing a structural model of an organ and establishing an expected shape of an organ. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification