System and method for graphical processing of medical data

• US 10,332,228 B2
• Filed: 12/16/2013
• Issued: 06/25/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Volcano Corporation (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Volcano Corporation (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Spencer, Jason
• Primary Examiner(s): Xiao, Ke
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tran, Kim Thanh T
• Application Number:
  US14/107,636
• Publication Number:
  US 20140176576A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,017 Days
• Field of Search: 345505, 382128-133
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/20 Processor architectures; Processor configuration, e.g. pipelining
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS

Abstract

The invention provides a computer server with a graphical processor that can process data from multiple medical imaging systems simultaneously. Data sets can be provided by any suitable imaging system (x-ray, angiography, PET scans, MRI, IVUS, OCT, cath labs, etc.) and a processing system of the invention allocates resources in the form of a virtual machine, processing power, operating system, applications, etc., as-needed. Embodiments of the invention may find particular application with cath labs due to the particular processing requirements of typical cath lab systems.

Claims

1. A medical imaging system comprising:

a server communicably coupled to a plurality of catheterization laboratories (cath labs) via at least one hub, each of the plurality of cath labs comprising an examination room with a plurality of imaging systems for capturing data associated with tissue of a patient, the plurality of imaging systems comprising a first imaging modality and a second imaging modality different than the first imaging modality, each of the first and second imaging modalities associated with of an angiographic, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), optical coherence tomography (OCT), optical acoustic, or intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging device, the server comprising a graphics processor coupled to a memory, wherein a hypervisor defines a plurality of virtual machines within the graphics processor, and further wherein the medical imaging system is operable to;

receive, from at least one of the plurality of cath labs, a first data set associated with tissue of the patient as captured by an imaging system of the plurality of imaging systems comprising the first imaging modality;

receive, from at least one of the plurality of cath labs, a second data set associated with tissue of the patient as captured by an imaging system of the plurality of imaging systems comprising the second imaging modality;

select, using the hypervisor, a first one of the plurality of virtual machines to receive the first data set based on processing availability of each of the plurality of virtual machines;

select, using the hypervisor, a second one of the plurality of virtual machines to receive the second data set based on the processing availability of each of the plurality of virtual machines;

process, using the graphics processor, the first data set within the selected first one of the plurality of virtual machines to generate a first image of the tissue associated with the first imaging modality;

process, using the graphics processor, the second data set within the selected second one of the plurality of virtual machines to generate a second image of the tissue associated with the second imaging modality, wherein the system is operable to process the first data set and the second data set simultaneously; and

provide the first image of the tissue and the second image of the tissue to at least one of the plurality of cath labs.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server and the plurality of cath labs are each on a different floor of a building.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the server and the plurality of cath labs are each in a different building.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the graphics processor comprises a frame buffer.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the graphics processor comprises a hardware accelerator configured to process the first data set.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the graphics processor comprises a microchip operable to execute a kernel written using OpenCL or CUDA.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the graphics processor further comprises an integrated ARM CPU.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the graphics processor is made by one selected from a list consisting of NVIDIA, AMD/ATI, S3 Graphics, and Matrox.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the graphics processor is operable to perform oversampling and interpolation.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the graphics processor is operable to process the first data set by performing a plurality of transformations in parallel within the selected one of the plurality of virtual machines.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is communicably coupled to an imaging instrument in each of the plurality of cath labs.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the first data set further comprises a three dimensional medical image.

10. A method of medical imaging, the method comprising:

providing a server communicably coupled to a plurality of catheterization laboratories (cath labs) via at least one hub, each of the plurality of cath labs comprising an examination room with a plurality of imaging systems for capturing data associated with tissue of a patient, the plurality of imaging systems comprising a first imaging modality and a second imaging modality different than the first imaging modality, the first and second imaging modalities associated with an angiographic, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), optical coherence tomography (OCT), optical acoustic, or intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging device, the server comprising a graphics processor coupled to a memory, wherein a hypervisor defines a plurality of virtual machines;

receiving, from at least one cath lab of the plurality of cath labs, a first data set comprising information about the patient'"'"'s tissue as captured by an imaging system of the plurality of imaging systems comprising the first imaging modality;

receiving, from at least one cath lab of the plurality of cath labs, a second data set comprising information about the patient'"'"'s tissue as captured by an imaging system of the plurality of imaging systems comprising the second imaging modality;

selecting, using the hypervisor, a first one of the plurality of virtual machines to receive the first data set based on processing availability of each of the plurality of virtual machines;

selecting, using the hypervisor, a second one of the plurality of virtual machines to receive the second data set based on the processing availability of each of the plurality of virtual machines;

performing an analysis on the first data set within the selected first one of the plurality of virtual machines to generate a first image of patient'"'"'s tissue associated with the first imaging modality;

performing, simultaneously with the analysis on the first data set, an analysis on the second data set within the selected second one of the plurality of virtual machines to generate a second image of the patient'"'"'s tissue associated with the second imaging modality; and

providing a result of the analysis to the server.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the result of the analysis comprises a viewable image on a monitor or saved to a disk.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the server and the plurality of cath labs are each in a different building.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising storing transformed data in a frame buffer on the graphics processor.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising using a hardware accelerator on the graphics processor.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising performing oversampling and interpolation steps on the data set.