ASSIGNMENT OF MEASUREMENT DATA TO INFORMATION DATA

• US 20120210204A1
• Filed: 02/10/2012
• Published: 08/16/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Healthineers AG (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Kramer, Martin, Seifert, Sascha
• Granted Patent: US 9,588,950 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/230
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/367 Ontology
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

A method is disclosed for assigning measurement data of a body of a patient to information data related to the same body. The method includes providing annotated measurement data, providing annotated information data, translating the first group of annotations into a first group of universal annotations and the second group of annotations into a second group of universal medical annotations in a universal annotation ontology management system, comparing the universal annotations of the first group of universal annotations with the universal annotations of the second group of universal annotations, and assigning the universal annotations to each other. An assignment system and a universal annotation ontology management system are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method of assigning measurement data of a body of a patient, the measurement data having been accumulated by a first medical imaging system, to information data related to the body or vice versa, the method comprising:

a) providing annotated measurement data to a number of measurement data regions, based on a first medical knowledge ontology, at least one measurement data finding being annotated in each of the measurement data regions, such that the measurement data regions together with the respective assigned measurement data findings form a first group of annotations, each of the measurement data findings representing a parameter value related to the corresponding measurement data region to which it is annotated;

b) providing annotated information data to a number of information data regions, based on a second medical knowledge ontology, at least one information data finding being annotated in each of the information data regions, such that the information data regions together with respective assigned information data findings form a second group of annotations, each of the information data findings representing a parameter value related to the corresponding information data region to which it is annotated;

c) translating the first group of annotations into a first group of universal annotations and the second group of annotations into a second group of universal medical annotations in a universal annotation ontology management system such that all universal annotations of the first group of annotations have the same ontological basis as all universal annotations of the second group of annotations;

d) comparing the universal annotations of the first group of universal annotations with the universal annotations of the second group of universal annotations based on features related to at least one of parameter values in the findings and regions; and

e) assigning the universal annotations to each other which have such common or similar features.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of

in step a), the measurement data are annotated, and

in step b) the information data are annotated.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein, upon display of a region of the measurement data, a corresponding region of the information data is displayed in parallel and wherein the corresponding region is considered to be a corresponding region based on a result of the assignment.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the universal annotations assigned to each other are assigned by hyper-linking them in a computer-readable medium.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein universal annotations in the first group of universal annotations and in the second group of annotations are realized as vectors and the comparison in step d) comprises a comparison of the vectors.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the measurement data comprise image data which are analyzed by a learning algorithm based image parser module.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the image data comprise image sequence data.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the information data comprise text data, which are analyzed by a text parser module.

9. The method according to claim 8, whereby the text data comprise audio text data.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the measurement data and the information data correspond to each other at least one of by referring to a same body region of the patient and by referring to a same patient study.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of additional measurement data from a second medical imaging system and additional information data apart from the information data are treated as outlined in the respective steps a) and b).

15. A computer program product directly loadable into a memory of a programmable device comprising software code portions to perform the method according to claim 1 when said computer program product is run on the programmable device.

16. The method according to claim 2, wherein, upon display of a region of the measurement data, a corresponding region of the information data is displayed in parallel and wherein the corresponding region is considered to be a corresponding region based on a result of the assignment.

17. A computer readable medium including program segments for, when executed on a computer device, causing the computer device to implement the method of claim 1.

12. An assignment system for assigning measurement data of a body of a patient, the measurement data having been accumulated by a medical imaging system, to information data related to the body or vice versa, the assignment system comprising:

a first providing module configured to provide annotated measurement data to a number of measurement data regions, based on a first medical knowledge ontology, at least one measurement data finding being annotated in each of the measurement data regions, such that the measurement data regions together with the respective assigned measurement data findings form a first group of annotations, each of the measurement data findings representing a parameter value related to a corresponding measurement data region to which it is annotated,

a second providing module configured to provide annotated information data to a number of information data regions, based on a second medical knowledge ontology, at least one information data finding being annotated in each of the information data regions, such that the information data regions together with respective assigned information data findings form a second group of annotations, each of the information data findings representing a parameter value related to a corresponding information data region to which it is annotated;

a universal annotation ontology management system configured to, in operation, translate the first group of annotations into a first group of universal annotations and translate the second group of annotations into a second group of universal annotations such that all universal annotations of the first group of universal annotations have the same ontological basis as all universal annotations of the second group of universal annotations;

a comparison module configured to, in operation, compare the universal annotations of the first group of universal annotations with the universal annotations of the second group of universal annotations by detecting common or similar features related at least one of to parameter values in the findings and to regions; and

e) an assignment module configured to, in operation, assign the universal annotations to each other which have such common or similar features.

13. An assignment system according to claim 12, wherein at least one of

the first providing module is configured to annotate the measurement data in operation and

the second providing module is configured to annotate the information data in operation.

14. A universal annotation ontology management system for assigning measurement data of a body of a patient, the measurement data having been accumulated by a medical imaging system to information data related to the same body or vice versa, the universal annotation ontology management system comprising:

a first input interface configured to receive annotated measurement data from a first providing module, the annotated measurement data corresponding to a number of measurement data regions in which, based on a first medical knowledge ontology, at least one measurement data finding is annotated in each of the measurement data regions, the measurement data regions together with their assigned measurement data findings forming a first group of annotations, each of the measurement data findings representing a parameter value related to the corresponding measurement data region to which it is annotated,

a second input interface configured to receive annotated information data from a second providing module the annotated information data corresponding to a number of information data regions in which, based on a second medical knowledge ontology, at least one information data finding is annotated in each of the information data regions, the information data regions together with their assigned information data findings forming a second group of annotations, each of the information data findings representing a parameter value related to the corresponding information data region to which it is annotated,

wherein the universal annotation ontology management system is configured to, in operation, translate the first group of annotations into a first group of universal annotations and the second group of annotations into a second group of universal annotations such that the universal annotations of the first group of universal annotations have the same ontological basis as the universal annotations of the second group of universal annotations.