Method and system for improved image segmentation
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method of identifying anatomical structures in a patient, the method comprising:
- acquiring an image of the patient, the image comprising a set of image elements;
segmenting the image to categorize at least some image elements according to their substance;
aligning the segmented image to an anatomical atlas;
computing the probability that the categorization of the image elements is correct;
resegmenting the image emphasizing image elements based on their probabilities; and
developing an anatomical mesh representing an anatomical structure, the anatomical mesh having a surface, and fitting the anatomical mesh to the segmented image, wherein the anatomical mesh has vertices, and wherein the fitting the anatomical mesh to the segmented image is based on the probabilities of the image elements near the vertices.
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Abstract
A system and method of identifying anatomical structures in a patient. The method includes the acts of acquiring an image of the patient, the image including a set of image elements; segmenting the image to categorize each image elements according to its substance; computing the probability that the categorization of each image element is correct; resegmenting the image starting with image elements that have a high probability and progressing to image elements with lower probabilities; aligning at least one of the image elements with an anatomical atlas; and fitting the anatomical atlas to the segmented image.
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Citations
28 Claims
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1. A method of identifying anatomical structures in a patient, the method comprising:
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acquiring an image of the patient, the image comprising a set of image elements; segmenting the image to categorize at least some image elements according to their substance; aligning the segmented image to an anatomical atlas; computing the probability that the categorization of the image elements is correct; resegmenting the image emphasizing image elements based on their probabilities; and developing an anatomical mesh representing an anatomical structure, the anatomical mesh having a surface, and fitting the anatomical mesh to the segmented image, wherein the anatomical mesh has vertices, and wherein the fitting the anatomical mesh to the segmented image is based on the probabilities of the image elements near the vertices. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13)
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11. In a radiation therapy system, a method of automatically identifying anatomical structures in a patient, the method comprising:
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acquiring an image of the patient; segmenting the image using a hierarchical series of image processing steps to identify landmarks in the image; and identifying the anatomical structures using the landmarks, wherein the identifying the anatomical structures using the landmarks further comprises establishing a region of interest known to contain an anatomical structure by drawing lines between landmark structures, recognizing candidate tissues within the region of interest, segmenting a rough draft of the region of interest, fitting a shape model to the draft, smoothing the shape model parameters and reconciling the draft with the shape model to determine the borders of the anatomical structure. - View Dependent Claims (12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A method of segmenting an image of a patient to identify the tissue class of each image element in the image, the method comprising:
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analyzing each image element using a set of rules to determine a probability of each image element being a given tissue class; aligning an anatomical atlas to the image; refining the tissue probabilities of each image element based on the atlas; and fitting a mesh to the image elements based on the probabilities, the mesh representing a structural model of an organ and establishing an expected shape of an organ. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification