COMPUTER TOMOGRAPHY SORTING BASED ON INTERNAL ANATOMY OF PATIENTS

• US 20120059252A1
• Filed: 05/13/2010
• Published: 03/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Regents of the University of California (University of California)
• Original Assignee: Regents of the University of California (University of California)
• Inventors: Li, Ruijiang, Jiang, Steve B., Lewis, John, Cervino, Laura
• Application Number:
  US13/320,237
• Publication Number:
  US 20120059252A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/425
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 6/032 Transmission computed tomography [CT]
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 6/50 specially adapted for specific body parts; specially adapted for specific clinical applications
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 6/5217 extracting a diagnostic or physiological parameter from medical diagnostic data
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10076 4D tomography; Time-sequential 3D tomography
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10081 Computed x-ray tomography [CT]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30061 Lung
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/246 using feature-based methods, e.g. the tracking of corners or segments
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/30 for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for computer tomography (CT) sorting based on internal anatomy of patients. CT scans of anatomical features of a human are obtained as pixels. From the scans, multiple respiratory features are determined. An optimal respiratory feature is selected and a respiratory signal is generated based on the multiple CT scans.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for generating a respiratory signal from computer tomography (CT) scans, the method comprising:

retrieving, by one or more data processing apparatuses, a plurality of CT scans of an anatomical feature of a human from one or more computer-readable storage devices in which the plurality of CT scans are stored;

determining, by the one or more data processing apparatuses, from the plurality of CT scans, a plurality of respiratory features;

generating, by the one or more data processing apparatuses, a respiratory signal for each respiratory feature directly from the plurality of CT scans based on the plurality of respiratory features and an optimal respiratory feature selected from the plurality of respiratory features; and

from the respiratory signals identified for the plurality of respiratory features, deriving a spatial coherence which is an average pair-wise correlation coefficient, wherein the correlation coefficient is a measure of a quality of the respiratory feature, wherein the spatial coherence is calculated as

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting, by the one or more data processing apparatuses, the optimal respiratory feature from the plurality of respiratory features.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

for each respiratory feature;

receiving, from the one or more computer-readable storage devices, CT scans used to determine the respiratory feature,

identifying respiratory signals generated based on the received CT scans; and

from the respiratory signals identified for the plurality of respiratory features, deriving a spatial coherence which is an average pair-wise correlation coefficient, wherein the correlation coefficient is a measure of a quality of the respiratory feature.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein spatial coherence is calculated as

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the spatial coherence is determined from respiratory signals obtained from a plurality of slice positions per couch position and a number of reconstructed axis CT slices per slice location, and an average of respiratory signals over time.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein CT scans are captured at a couch position which is one of a region around the upper thorax or a region below the diaphragm.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising processing the respiratory signal to improve sorting accuracy, the processing comprising applying a non-causal low pass filter to the respiratory signal and applying a cubic interpolation to obtain a smooth curve as a final respiratory signal.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a CT scan is stored in the one or more computer-readable storage devices as a plurality of pixels, wherein a respiratory feature is one or more of an air content, a lung area, a lung density, or a human body area.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the body area is the total number of pixels within a contour of the anatomical feature.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the lung is defined as a threshold of −

350 Hounsfield Units (HU) plus a morphological smoothing operation.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the lung area is a total number of pixels within the lung.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the lung density is an average of CT numbers within the lung.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein air content is a summation of all CT numbers within the lung.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a respiratory feature comprises identifying a contour of a body of the human in a CT scan, wherein the contour of the body is scanned at a couch position that has a couch height, and wherein identifying the contour of the body in the CT scan comprises:

setting an image intensity measured in Hounsfield units (HU) posterior to the couch height to a value;

applying a threshold value measured in HU to find a body boundary; and

using a morphological hole-filling operation to identify the body contour in each CT scan.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the image intensity posterior to the couch height is set to −

1000 HU.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the threshold value is set to −

400 HU.

2. A computer-implemented method for generating a respiratory signal from computer tomography (CT) scans, the method comprising:

retrieving, by one or more data processing apparatuses, a plurality of CT scans of an anatomical feature of a human from one or more computer-readable storage devices in which the plurality of CT scans are stored;

determining, by the one or more data processing apparatuses, from the plurality of CT scans, a plurality of respiratory features; and

generating, by the one or more data processing apparatuses, a respiratory signal directly from the plurality of CT scans based on the plurality of respiratory features and an optimal respiratory feature selected from the plurality of respiratory features.

18. A computer-readable medium tangibly storing computer software instructions executable by data processing apparatus to perform operations for generating a respiratory signal from computer tomography (CT) scans, the operations comprising:

processing a plurality of CT scans of an anatomical feature of a human to obtain a plurality of respiratory features;

selecting an optimal respiratory feature from the plurality of respiratory features; and

generating a respiratory signal directly from the plurality of CT scans based on the plurality of respiratory features and an optimal respiratory feature selected based on the plurality of respiratory features.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, the operations further comprising:

for each respiratory feature, identifying respiratory signals generated based on CT scans used to determine the respiratory feature; and

from the respiratory signals identified for the plurality of respiratory features, deriving an average pair-wise correlation coefficient, wherein the correlation coefficient is a measure of a quality of the respiratory feature.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the average pair-wise correlation coefficient is determined from respiratory signals obtained from a plurality of slice positions per couch position and a number of reconstructed axis CT slices per slice location, and an average of respiratory signals over time.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, the operations further comprising processing the respiratory signal to improve sorting accuracy by applying a non-causal low pass filter to the respiratory signal and applying a cubic interpolation to obtain a smooth curve as a final respiratory signal.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein a respiratory feature is one or more of an air content, a lung area, a lung density, or a human body area,

wherein the body area is the total number of pixels within a contour of the anatomical feature,

wherein the lung is defined as a threshold of −

350 Hounsfield Units (HU) plus a morphological smoothing operation,

wherein the lung area is a total number of pixels within the lung,

wherein the lung density is an average of CT numbers within the lung, and

wherein air content is a summation of all CT numbers within the lung.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein determining a respiratory feature comprises identifying a contour of a body of the human in a CT scan, wherein the contour of the body is scanned at a couch position that has a couch height, and wherein identifying the contour of the body in the CT scan comprises:

setting an image intensity measured in Hounsfield units (HU) posterior to the couch height to a value of −

1000 HU;

applying a threshold value of −

400 HU to find a body boundary; and

using a morphological hole-filling operation to identify the body contour in each CT scan.

24. A program which makes a computer execute procedures, the procedures comprising:

receiving a plurality of computer tomography (CT) scans of an anatomical feature of a human, wherein each CT scan comprises a plurality of pixels;

determining from the plurality of CT scans, a plurality of respiratory features;

selecting, by the data processing apparatus, an optimal respiratory feature from the plurality of respiratory features; and

generating a respiratory signal directly from the plurality of CT scans based on the plurality of respiratory features.

25. The program of claim 24, the procedures further comprising, for each respiratory feature:

receiving CT scans from which the respiratory feature was determined, and

identifying respiratory signals generated based on the received CT scans; and

from the respiratory signals identified for the plurality of respiratory features, deriving a spatial coherence which is an average pair-wise correlation coefficient, wherein the correlation coefficient is a measure of a quality of the respiratory feature.

26. The program of claim 24, the procedures further comprising processing the respiratory signal to improve sorting accuracy by applying a non-causal low pass filter to the respiratory signal and applying a cubic interpolation to obtain a smooth curve as a final respiratory signal.

27. The program of claim 24, wherein a respiratory feature is one or more of an air content, a lung area, a lung density, or a human body area,

wherein the body area is the total number of pixels within a contour of the anatomical feature,

wherein the lung is defined as a threshold of −

350 Hounsfield Units (HU) plus a morphological smoothing operation,

wherein the lung area is a total number of pixels within the lung,

wherein the lung density is an average of CT numbers within the lung, and

wherein air content is a summation of all CT numbers within the lung.

28. A system comprising:

means for receiving a plurality of computer tomography (CT) scans of an anatomical feature of a human, wherein each CT scan comprises a plurality of pixels;

means for determining from the plurality of CT scans, a plurality of respiratory features;

means for selecting an optimal respiratory feature from the plurality of respiratory features; and

means for generating a respiratory signal directly from the plurality of CT scans based on the plurality of respiratory features.

29. The system of claim 28, further comprising, for each respiratory feature:

means for receiving CT scans from which the respiratory feature was determined;

means for identifying respiratory signals generated based on the received CT scans; and

means for deriving, from the identified respiratory signals, a spatial coherence which is an average pair-wise correlation coefficient, wherein the correlation coefficient is a measure of a quality of the respiratory feature, wherein the spatial coherence is calculated as