Mammography information system

• US 9,183,355 B2
• Filed: 11/25/2009
• Issued: 11/10/2015
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Gilligan, Luke
• Application Number:
  US12/625,898
• Publication Number:
  US 20110123079A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,176 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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

1. A configurable mammography diagnostic system, comprising:

a plural 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, the breast tissue image having an imaging modality of at least one of radiological, X-ray, computed tomography, ultrasound, magnetic resonance, or tomosynthesis, wherein a computer aided diagnostic (CAD) tool selected based on the imaging modality is configured to identify the at least one region of interest;

a first networked 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 for a medical facility;

a second networked databases including a plurality existing categorizations of at least one known region of interest in at least one of a plurality of breast tissue images for a plurality of medical facilities;

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 an adjacent display of statistical information from a comparison of the manual current categorization with the existing categorizations of the first networked database and the second networked database, wherein the statistical information comprises;

a number of biopsies performed that were diagnosed as malignancies;

a number of biopsies performed that were diagnosed as benign; and

a total number of matching abnormalities;

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 mage with a corresponding region of interest marked on the anatomical diagram.

2. The System of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of breast tissue images is cataloged in the first or second networked database according to a characteristic of the breast tissue image.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the characteristic is the existing categorization.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the CAD tool is operable to detail the potential region of interest to provide a CAD current categorization.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the processing engine is operable to compare the CAD current categorization and the manual current categorization determined for a particular region of interest.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein an algorithm of the CAD tool is updated based on the comparison of the CAD current categorization with the manual current categorization.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein the processing engine is operable to compare the CAD current categorization with pathological data related to a particular region of interest.

8. A computer-implemented method for managing patient mammography data comprising:

obtaining, by a networked computer system, a plurality of breast tissue images, according to an imaging modality, wherein the imaging modality is at least one of an X-ray image, a CT image, an MRI image, at ultrasound image, and a pathology image;

selecting a computer aided diagnostic (CAD) module based on the imaging modality;

identifying, with the CAD module, 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, by the computer system, the categorization with a first database of existing categorizations of a medical facility and a second database of existing categorizations of a plurality of medical facilities and presenting, by the computer system, as diagnostic indicator based on the comparing, wherein presenting comprises adjacently displaying a number of biopsies performed that were diagnosed as malignancies;

a number of biopsies performed that were diagnosed as benign; and

a total number of matching abnormalities for the existing categorizations of both the first database and the second database;

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

mapping, by the computer system, the second image to storage location of the at least one of the plurality of breast tissue images; and

associating, by the computer system, the selected region with the categorized region of interest.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising altering the categorization, and updating, by the computer system, the diagnostic indicator based on a Comparison of the altered categorization and the existing categorizations.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein presenting, by the computer system, the diagnostic indicator comprises presenting a number of instances at 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.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising cataloging, by the computer system, images in the database according to at least one characteristic of the categorization or the existing categorizations.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein obtaining a categorization comprises obtaining a human categorization.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, further comprising comparing, by the computer system, the human categorization with a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) categorization for the same region of interest.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, 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 al benign diagnosis.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising comparing, by the computer system, 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.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein obtaining a categorization comprises obtaining a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) categorization.