MAPPING OF LITERATURE ONTO REGIONS OF INTEREST ON NEUROLOGICAL IMAGES

• US 20090316968A1
• Filed: 06/18/2008
• Published: 12/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kraemer, James R., Angell, Robert Lee, Friedlander, Robert R., Fueyo, Joanna Lynn
• Granted Patent: US 8,199,982 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/131
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/055 involving electronic [EMR] or nuclear [NMR] magnetic resonance, e.g. magnetic resonance imaging
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 6/037 Emission tomography
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 6/501 for diagnosis of the head, e.g. neuroimaging or craniography
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20104 Interactive definition of region of interest [ROI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30016 Brain
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/40 for processing medical images, e.g. editing
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/70 for mining of medical data, e.g. analysing previous cases of other patients
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/00 ICT specially adapted for the handling or processing of medical references

Abstract

A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for analyzing neurological images. A set of brain scans for a patient is compared to a set of baseline control scans to automatically identify regions of interest in the set of patient scans. A region of interest is an area in a scan that shows an indication of a potential abnormality. A set of electronic medical literature sources is searched for medical literature relevant to the regions of interest in the set of patient scans. The relevant medical literature is correlated to the medical literature describing the regions of interest in the set of patient scans to the regions of interest in the set of patient scans. A result is generated. The result comprises the regions of interest and a set of links to the correlated portions of the relevant medical literature are outputted.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of analyzing neurological images, the computer implemented method comprising:

comparing a set of brain scans for a patient to a set of baseline control scans to automatically identify a set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans, wherein a region of interest is an area in a scan that shows an indication of a potential abnormality;

searching a set of electronic medical literature sources for medical literature relevant to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to form relevant medical literature;

correlating portions of the relevant medical literature describing the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to form correlated portions of the relevant medical literature; and

generating a result, wherein the result comprises the set of patient scans and a set of links to the correlated portions of the relevant medical literature.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein portions of the relevant medical literature describing the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans comprises a set of brain scans in the relevant medical literature showing areas of a brain having an identified abnormality that corresponds to the potential abnormality shown in the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

presenting the set of regions of interest to a user;

responsive to receiving a selection of a set of additional regions of interest in the set of patient scans from the user to form a set of user selected regions of interest, adding the set of user selected region of interest to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans; and

responsive to receiving a selection of a set of undesired regions of interest in the set of patient scans from the user to form a set of de-selected regions of interest, removing the set of de-selected regions of interest from the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein searching the set of electronic medical literature sources further comprising:

identifying the set of electronic medical literature sources; and

searching medical literature available from the set of electronic medical literature sources using at least one of data mining, search engines, and queries to identify the relevant medical literature in the medical literature available from the set of electronic medical literature sources.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the set of baseline control scans comprises a set of baseline normal scans, and further comprising:

receiving a set of brain scans for a set of healthy subjects in various demographic groups to form the baseline normal scans; and

analyzing the baseline normal scans to identify a normal appearance of areas in normal brain scans, wherein a normal brain scan is a scan that does not show indications of disease or abnormalities in the areas in the normal brain scans.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the set of baseline control scans comprises a set of baseline abnormal scans, and further comprising:

receiving a set of brain scans for a set of subjects in various demographic groups having identified abnormalities in the set of brain scans to form the baseline abnormal scans; and

analyzing the baseline abnormal scans to identify an abnormal appearance of areas in brain scans, wherein an abnormal scan is a scan that shows indications of disease or abnormalities in the areas of the brain scans.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the set of brain scans comprises a set of positron emission tomography scans of the patient.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the set of brain scans comprises a set of magnetic resonance imaging scans of the patient.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the set of links to the correlated portions of the relevant medical literature are embedded in the set of patient scans.

10. A computer program product for analyzing neurological images, the computer program product comprising:

a computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code configured to compare a set of brain scans for a patient to a set of baseline control scans to automatically identify set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans, wherein a region of interest is an area in a scan that shows an indication of a potential abnormality;

computer usable program code configured to search a set of electronic medical literature sources for medical literature relevant to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to form relevant medical literature;

computer usable program code configured to correlate portions of the relevant medical literature describing the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to form correlated portions of the relevant medical literature; and

computer usable program code configured to generate a result, wherein the result comprises the set of patient scans and a set of links to the correlated portions of the relevant medical literature.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein portions of the relevant medical literature describing the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans comprises a set of brain scans in the relevant medical literature showing areas of a brain having an identified abnormality that corresponds to the potential abnormality shown in the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans.

12. The computer program product of claim 10 further comprising:

computer usable program code configured to present the set of regions of interest to a user;

computer usable program code configured to add the set of user selected regions of interest to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans in response to receiving a selection of a set of additional regions of interest in the set of patient scans from the user to form a set of user selected regions of interest; and

computer usable program code configured to remove the set of de-selected regions of interest from the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans in response to receiving a selection of a set of undesired regions of interest in the set of patient scans from the user to form a set of de-selected regions of interest.

13. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein searching the set of electronic medical literature sources further comprising:

computer usable program code configured to identify the set of electronic medical literature sources; and

computer usable program code configured to search medical literature available from the set of electronic medical literature sources using at least one of data mining, search engines, and queries to identify the relevant medical literature in the medical literature available from the set of electronic medical literature sources.

14. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein the set of baseline control scans comprises a set of baseline normal scans, and further comprising:

computer usable program code configured to receive a set of brain scans for a set of healthy subjects in various demographic groups to form the baseline normal scans; and

computer usable program code configured to analyze the baseline normal scans to identify a normal appearance of areas in normal brain scans, wherein a normal brain scan is a scan that does not show indications of disease or abnormalities in the areas in the normal brain scans.

15. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein the set of baseline control scans comprises a set of baseline abnormal scans, and further comprising:

computer usable program code configured to receive a set of brain scans for a set of subjects in various demographic groups having identified abnormalities in the set of brain scans to form the baseline abnormal scans; and

computer usable program code configured to analyze the baseline abnormal scans to identify an abnormal appearance of areas in brain scans, wherein an abnormal scan is a scan that shows indications of disease or abnormalities in the areas of the brain scans.

16. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein the set of brain scans comprises at least one of a set of positron emission tomography scans of the patient and a set of magnetic resonance imaging scans of the patient.

17. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein the set of links to the correlated portions of the relevant medical literature are embedded in the set of patient scans.

18. An apparatus comprising:

a bus system;

a communications system coupled to the bus system;

a memory connected to the bus system, wherein the memory includes computer usable program code; and

a processing unit coupled to the bus system, wherein the processing unit executes the computer usable program code to compare a set of brain scans for a patient to a set of baseline control scans to automatically identify a set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans, wherein a region of interest is an area in a scan that shows an indication of a potential abnormality;

search a set of electronic medical literature sources for medical literature relevant to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to form relevant medical literature;

correlate portions of the relevant medical literature describing the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to form correlated portions of the relevant medical literature; and

generate a result, wherein the result comprises the set of patient scans and a set of links to the correlated portions of the relevant medical literature.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein the processor unit further executes the computer usable program code to identify the set of electronic medical literature sources;

and search medical literature available from the set of electronic medical literature sources using at least one of data mining, search engines, and queries to identify the relevant medical literature in the medical literature available from the set of electronic medical literature sources.

20. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein the processor unit further executes the computer usable program code to receive a set of brain scans for a set of subjects in various demographic groups having identified abnormalities in the set of brain scans to form the baseline abnormal scans;

and analyze the baseline abnormal scans to identify an abnormal appearance of areas in brain scans, wherein an abnormal scan is a scan that shows indications of disease or abnormalities in the areas of the brain scans.

21. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein the processor unit further executes the computer usable program code to receive a set of brain scans for a set of healthy subjects in various demographic groups to form the baseline normal scans;

and analyze the baseline normal scans to identify a normal appearance of areas in normal brain scans, wherein a normal brain scan is a scan that does not show indications of disease or abnormalities in the areas in the normal brain scans.

22. An apparatus for mapping medical literature onto neurological images, the apparatus comprising:

a neuroimage mapping manager, wherein the neuroimage mapping manager performs an analysis on neurological images of a patient and automatically identifies a set of regions of interest and maps relevant portions of medical literature to the set of regions of interest, the neuroimage mapping manager further comprising;

a comparator, wherein the comparator compares a set of brain scans for a patient to a set of baseline control scans to automatically identify set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans, wherein a region of interest is an area in a scan that shows an indication of a potential abnormality;

a medical data and text analytics component, wherein the medical data and text analytics component searches a set of electronic medical literature sources for medical literature relevant to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to form relevant medical literature, and wherein the medical data and text analytics component further comprises;

a correlation engine, wherein the correlation engine correlates portions of the relevant medical literature describing the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans to form correlated portions of the relevant medical literature; and

wherein the neuroimage mapping manager generates a result of the analysis of the neurological images, wherein the result comprises the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans and a set of links to the correlated portions of the relevant medical literature.

23. The apparatus of claim 22 further comprising:

a set of computer, wherein the neuroimage mapping manager is located on the set of computers.

24. The apparatus of claim 22 further comprising:

an input/output device, wherein the input/output device presents the set of regions of interest automatically selected by the neuroimage mapping manager to a user and prompts the user to indicate whether the user desires to select one or more additional regions of interest to be added to the set of regions of interest or select one or more undesired regions of interest to be removed from the set of regions of interest; and

wherein the neuroimage mapping manager adds the one or more additional regions of interest to the set of regions of interest in the set of patient scans in response to the input/output device receiving a selection of at least one additional region of interest from the user, and wherein the neuroimage mapping manager removes de-selected regions of interest from the set of regions of interest in response to receiving a selection of a set of de-selected regions of interest to be removed from the set of regions of interest from the user.

25. The apparatus of claim 22 wherein the medical data and text analytics analyzes baseline normal scans to identify a normal appearance of areas in normal brain scans in response to receiving a set of brain scans for a set of healthy subjects in various demographic groups to form the baseline normal scans and, wherein a normal brain scan is a scan that does not show indications of disease or abnormalities in the areas in the normal brain scans;

and wherein the medical data and text analytics analyzes baseline abnormal scans to identify an abnormal appearance of areas in brain scans in response to receiving a set of brain scans for a set of subjects in various demographic groups having identified abnormalities in the set of brain scans to form the baseline abnormal scans, wherein an abnormal scan is a scan that shows indications of disease or abnormalities in the areas of the brain scans.