Determining medical outcome quality

A computer implemented image processing method for the assessment of medical procedures, comprising:

• acquiring pre-completion medical image data describing an anatomical structure of a patient's body in a state before the medical procedure has been completed on the anatomical structure, the anatomical structure being subject to the medical procedure;
• the medical procedure being at least one of radiotherapy or radiosurgery procedure;
• acquiring pre-completion non-image medical data describing a state and medical history of the patient before the medical procedure has been completed on the anatomical structure;
• acquiring medical procedure planning data describing a plan for execution of the medical procedure to be carried out on the anatomical structure;
• determining, based on the pre-completion medical image data and the medical procedure planning data, procedure application data describing an application of the medical procedure planning data to the pre-completion medical image data, wherein determining the procedure application data comprises establishing a coordinate mapping between the medical procedure planning data and the pre-completion medical image data;
• acquiring atlas data describing an image-based model of the anatomical structure as a common reference frame, wherein the atlas data is multi-modal;
• linking available medical image data, including the pre-completion medical image data and the procedure application data, across a plurality of patients to the common reference frame by applying an image fusion algorithm;
• establishing, by the image fusion algorithm, a transformation between a common reference frame of the atlas data and the pre-completion medical image data and the procedure application data by applying the image fusion to the atlas data, pre-completion medical image data and the procedure application data;
• wherein the transformation provides a measure of similarity between the atlas data and the pre-completion medical image data and the procedure application data by comparing the distribution of color values in each of the atlas data, pre-completion medical image data and procedure application data;
• creating a visual representation of a dose distribution for the radiotherapy or radiosurgery generated as an overlay on the anatomical structure to at least partially generate the procedure planning data;
• applying at least the procedure application data to the radiosurgery or radiotherapy procedure;
• acquiring post-completion non-image medical data describing a state and medical history of the patient after the medical procedure has been completed on the anatomical structure;
• acquiring post-completion medical image data describing the anatomical structure in a state after the medical procedure has been completed on the anatomical structure;
• applying the transformation to the post-completion medical image data;
• determining, based on the procedure application data and the pre-completion non-image medical data and the post-completion non-image medical data and the post-completion medical image data, outcome quality data comprising a quality measure describing a quality of the outcome of the medical procedure, wherein the quality measure describes a measure of accuracy of execution of the medical procedure, wherein the measure of accuracy is described by a value defining a geometric difference between the procedure application data and the post-completion medical image data;
• modifying the procedure planning data based upon the outcome quality data.