APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIC COMPUTATION OF CARDIOTHORACIC RATIO

• US 3,869,602 A
• Filed: 08/29/1972
• Issued: 03/04/1975
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/1971
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Kohji Ukena, Nobuhiko Sezaki
• Original Assignee: Kohji Ukena, Nobuhiko Sezaki
• Inventors: Sezaki, Nobuhiko, Ukena, Kohji
• Primary Examiner(s): Ruggiero, Joseph F.
• Application Number:
  US05/284,558
• Time in Patent Office: 917 Days
• Field of Search: 235/151.3 444/1 128/2.5R,2.6R,2.6B,2.6G,2.1R,419R,DIG.3 178/DIG.5,DIG.22 250/320,321,322,323,401
• US Class Current: 600/481
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/107 Measuring physical dimensions, e.g. size of the entire body or parts thereof
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 6/503 for diagnosis of the heart
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 21/5911 of the scanning type scanning per se G02B
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10116 X-ray image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30048 Heart; Cardiac
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/62 of area, perimeter, diameter or volume

Abstract

An apparatus for automatically measuring the cardiothoracic ratios speedily and with a sufficiently high accuracy, characterized in that the profiles of the thorax and heart are first inferred by processing information on brightness from an Xray image and then an error in the inference of the profiles is corrected by contextual data processing, so that the cardiothoracic ratio may be computed on the basis of the corrected data.

Claims

1. A system for automatically measuring the cardiothoracic ratios comprising photo-electric conversion means (820) for effectively scanning a chest X-ray image (810) along a plurality of parallel lines perpendicular to the median line of said chest X-ray image and converting the brightness of said X-ray image into a corresponding electrical signal, data processing means (830) for processing data obtained from said photo-electric conversion means, and means (840) for recording or displaying the value of the cardiothoracic ratio obtained from said data processing means, said data processing means (830) inferring intersections between the boundary lines of the thorax and the heart and said plurality of parallel lines on the basis of data obtained along each of said parallel lines, said data processing means (830) correcting erroneous data which may be contained in four series of data corresponding to the boundary lines of the thorax and the heart, whereby the cardiothoracic ratio is determined on the basis of said four series of data.

2. A system for automatically measuring the cardiothoracic ratios according to claim 1, in which said film handling means is manually operated.

3. A system for automatically measuring the cardiothoracic ratios according to claim 1, in which said photo-electric conversion means comprises a standard type of television image pickup device or an equivalent film camera.

4. A system for automatically measuring the cardiothoracic ratios according to claim 1, in which said data processing means is replaced by a general-purpose digital computer.

5. A system for automatically measuring the cardiothoracic ratios according to claim 1, in which data are processed in such a maNner as to display or record the profiles of the heart and/or the thorax or the silhouettes thereof as well as the cardiothoracic ratios.

6. A system for automatically measuring the cardiothoracic ratios according to claim 1, further comprising film handling means for automatically feeding the film carrying said chest X-ray image.