Method and system for enhancement and detection of abnormal anatomic regions in a digital image
First Claim
1. A method for automated detection and indication of an abnormal anatomic region using a digital image, comprising the step of:
- generating a single digital image of an object;
storing said single image;
filtering said stored single image to remove anatomic background derived from normal anatomic structure and thereby to enhance in the resulting filtered image an abnormal pattern corresponding to an abnormal anatomic region;
searching said filtered image to determine a region having said abnormal pattern in said digital image; and
indicating the position of said abnormal anatomic region in connection with said digital image.
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Abstract
A method and system for detecting and displaying abnormal anatomic regions existing in a digital X-ray image, wherein a single projection digital X-ray image is processed to obtain signal-enhanced image data with a maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and is also processed to obtain signal-suppressed image data with a suppressed SNR. Then, difference image data are formed by subtraction of the signal-suppressed image data from the signal-enhanced image data to remove low-frequency structured anatomic background, which is basically the same in both the signal-suppressed and signal-enhanced image data. Once the structured background is removed, feature extraction, is performed. For the detection of lung nodules, pixel thresholding is performed, followed by circularity and/or size testing of contiguous pixels surviving thresholding. Threshold levels are varied, and the effect of varying the threshold on circularity and size is used to detect nodules. For the detection of mammographic microcalcifications, pixel thresholding and contiguous pixel area thresholding are performed. Clusters of suspected abnormalities are then detected.
263 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for automated detection and indication of an abnormal anatomic region using a digital image, comprising the step of:
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generating a single digital image of an object; storing said single image; filtering said stored single image to remove anatomic background derived from normal anatomic structure and thereby to enhance in the resulting filtered image an abnormal pattern corresponding to an abnormal anatomic region; searching said filtered image to determine a region having said abnormal pattern in said digital image; and indicating the position of said abnormal anatomic region in connection with said digital image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A system for automated detection and indication of an abnormal anatomic region from a digital image of an object, comprising:
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means for generating a single digital image of said object; means for filtering said single digital image to remove anatomic background derived from normal anatomic structure thereby to enhance in the resulting filtered image an abnormal pattern corresponding to an abnormal anatomic region; means for searching the filtered digital image to identify said abnormal pattern in the filtered digital image; and means for indicating the location of the abnormal anatomic region based on the location of a region of the filtered digital image in which the abnormal pattern is identified. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. An apparatus for automated detection and indication of an abnormal region in an object, comprising:
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image generating means for generating a digital X-ray image signal of the object; storing means for storing said digital image signal generated by said generating means; first processing means for filtering said stored digital X-ray image signal and producing a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)-suppressed image; second processing means for filtering said stored digital X-ray image signal and producing a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)-enhanced image; third processing means for producing a difference image between said SNR-suppressed image and SNR-enhanced image; means for searching said difference image, and extracting and determining abnormal regions in the difference image, locating means for locating said determined regions with abnormal features, and producing a location signal corresponding to the abnormal region in said digital X-ray image signal; and indicating means for displaying the indication of the abnormal region responsive to said location signal in connection with said original X-ray image.
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Specification