MAMMOGRAPHY INFORMATION SYSTEM

• US 20110123079A1
• Filed: 11/25/2009
• Published: 05/26/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Penrad Technologies Incorporated (Intelerad Medical Systems Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Penrad Technologies Incorporated (Intelerad Medical Systems Incorporated)
• Inventors: Gustafson, Greg
• Granted Patent: US 9,183,355 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/131
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/24 involving graphical user interfaces [GUIs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20104 Interactive definition of region of interest [ROI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30068 Mammography; Breast
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/11 Region-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/41 based on statistical description of texture
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 15/00 ICT specially adapted for medical reports, e.g. generation or transmission thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/40 for processing medical images, e.g. editing
• 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

Abstract

A method and system for analyzing and retrieving breast tissue abnormality tracking data, providing a tool for a radiologist that includes a report summarizing the statistical frequency of diagnosed patients, both locally and nationally, with breast tissue region-of-interest classifications similar to the breast tissue images taken of the anatomy of an individual patient. In one embodiment, a computer aided diagnostic program can be tested or verified against the breast tissue images and the region-of-interest classifications that have been validated by definitive patient diagnosis. Another embodiment allows the efficient collection of all of the breast tissue abnormalities for a given medical facility in order to provide trending data or radiologist performance analysis. In yet another embodiment, the region-of-interest abnormalities in a single location in a patient'"'"'s tissue are correlated across a variety of imaging modalities including X-rays, mammogram, CT, ultrasound, MRI, or other imaging technologies. In another embodiment, the region-of-interest feature descriptors based on a location of an abnormality can be correlated by features and images for a plurality of imaging modalities as well as the pathological outcome.

Claims

10. A method for managing patient mammography data comprising:

obtaining a plurality of breast tissue images selected from the group consisting of an X-ray image, a CT image, an MRI image, an ultrasound image, and a pathology image;

identifying a region of interest in at least one of the plurality of breast tissue images;

obtaining a categorization of a breast tissue abnormality in the region of interest according to an established lexicon;

comparing the categorization with a database of existing categorizations and presenting a diagnostic indicator based on the comparing;

storing a selected region of the at least one of the plurality of breast tissue images as a second image;

mapping the second image to a storage location of the at least one of the plurality of breast tissue images; and

associating the selected region with the categorized region of interest.

1. A configurable mammography diagnostic system, comprising:

a plurality of electronic displays, at least one of the plurality of electronic displays configured to display a breast tissue image having at least one region of interest;

a database including a plurality of existing categorizations of at least one known region of interest in at least one of a plurality of breast tissue images;

a graphical user interface presented on at least one of the plurality of electronic displays and including;

an anatomical diagram on which the at least one region of interest can be marked,

a detailing button linked to a screen configured to present a plurality of possible characteristics according to which a manual current categorization of a region of interest in the breast tissue image can be defined, and

a profiler display button configured to present statistical information related to a comparison of the manual current categorization with the existing categorizations;

a clipping tool with which a portion of the breast tissue image displayed on at least one of the plurality of electronic displays can be selected as a second image, the second image displayable on at least one of the plurality of electronic displays as a subset of the breast tissue image; and

a processing engine configured to link the second image to the breast tissue image, store the second image in an image database, and to associate the second image with a corresponding region of interest marked on the anatomical diagram.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the breast tissue image is selected from the group consisting of an X-ray image, a CT image, an MRI image, an ultrasound image, and a pathology image.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of breast tissue images is cataloged in the database according to a characteristic of the breast tissue image.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the characteristic is the existing categorization.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) tool operable to identify a potential region of interest in the breast tissue image.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the CAD tool is operable to detail the potential region of interest to provide a CAD current categorization.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the processing engine is operable to compare the CAD current categorization and the manual current categorization determined for a particular region of interest.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein an algorithm of the CAD tool is updated based on the comparison of the CAD current categorization with the manual current categorization.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the processing engine is operable to compare the CAD current categorization with pathological data related to a particular region of interest.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising altering the categorization, and updating the diagnostic indicator based on a comparison of the altered categorization and the existing categorizations.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein presenting the diagnostic indicator comprises presenting a number of instances of the categorization within the existing categorizations, a number of diagnoses of malignant abnormalities for the categorization among the existing categorizations, and a number of diagnoses of benign abnormalities for the categorization among the existing categorizations.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising cataloging images in the database according to at least one characteristic of the categorization or the existing categorizations.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein obtaining a categorization comprises obtaining a human categorization.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising comparing the human categorization with a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) categorization for the same region of interest.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the database of existing categorizations includes an identified region of interest in each of a plurality of breast tissue images, and wherein each region of interest is associated with one of either a malignant or a benign diagnosis.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising comparing the associated malignant or benign diagnosis of a region of interest in the database with a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) of the one of the plurality of breast tissue images associated with the region of interest.

13-1. The method of claim 10, wherein obtaining a categorization comprises obtaining a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) categorization.

18. A mammography information system comprising:

at least one electronic display;

a graphical user interface presented on the at least one electronic display and configured to present data and information related to a patient, the graphical user interface comprising an image gallery configured to display thumbnail representations of a plurality of images that form a portion of the data and information, the plurality of images selectable from X-ray images, CT images, MRI images, ultrasound images, pathology images and document images; and

a database operable to store the thumbnail representations of the plurality of images.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the document images comprise at least a portion of at least one of a report, a letter, a lab result, and a text document.

20. The system of claim 18, further comprising an anatomical diagram presented on the graphical user interface and on which at least one region of interest corresponding to a region of interest in at least one of the plurality of images can be indicated by a mark.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein the mark on the anatomical diagram is linked to the at least one of the plurality of images.

22. A multiple modality tissue image profiler comprising:

a database of existing pathological findings for a plurality of tissue abnormalities, each tissue abnormality located in a region of interest of one of a plurality of tissue images;

a graphical user interface configured to present a plurality of possible characteristics according to which a tissue abnormality can be characterized; and

a processor configured to identify existing categorizations in the database that match selected ones of the plurality of possible characteristics and to retrieve at least one image having at least one of the selected ones of the plurality of possible characteristics based on a comparison with the existing categorizations and to present the at least one image depicting the characterized tissue abnormality in the graphical user interface;

wherein the plurality of images depicting the characterized tissue abnormality include a plurality of different imaging modalities.

23. The profiler of claim 22, wherein the plurality of different imaging modalities are selected from the group consisting of an X-ray image, an MRI image, an ultrasound image, a CT image and a pathologic image.