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US 11,386,560 B2Granted
Segmentation of the cardiac region in CT images
AssigneeBayer Aktiengesellschaft
InventorsFranco Fois, Wei Liao, Daniel Rechsteiner
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present disclosure pertains to the analysis of the cardiac region in CT images. Provided herein are a method, a computer system and a computer program product for the segmentation of the cardiac region in CT images.
Claims9
A method comprising:
- receiving a CT image of a cardiac region of a person, the CT image depicting with contrast enhancement via a contrast agent a right ventricle, a left ventricle and blood vessels comprising a pulmonary artery and an aorta;
- generating a cardiac-region binary image from the received CT image by application of a grey-scale threshold method;
- generating two images from the cardiac-region binary image, a coarse-structure image by application of an objectness coarse filter and a fine-structure image by application of an objectness fine filter;
- fitting the coarse-structure image into an atlas of a heart, wherein sectional areas for transitions from aorta and pulmonary artery to the ventricles are defined for the atlas of the heart;
- applying the sectional areas to the fine-structure image, removing structures arising from the ventricles and, in doing so, generating a blood-vessel binary image;
- applying the sectional areas to the cardiac-region binary image, removing structures arising from the blood vessels and, in doing so, generating a ventricle binary image;
- and
- displaying the blood-vessel binary image and/or the ventricle binary image on a screen and/or outputting the blood-vessel binary image and/or the ventricle binary image on a printer and/or storing the blood-vessel binary image and/or the ventricle binary image in a data storage medium.
5 more elements
A computer system comprising:
- a receiving unit;
- a control and calculation unit;
- and
- an output unit;
- wherein the control and calculation unit is configured to:
- prompt the receiving unit to receive a CT image of a cardiac region of a person, the CT image depicting with contrast enhancement via a contrast agent a right ventricle, a left ventricle and blood vessels comprising a pulmonary artery and an aorta;
- generate a cardiac-region binary image from the received CT image by application of a grey-scale threshold method;
- generate two images from the cardiac-region binary image, a coarse-structure image by application of an objectness coarse filter and a fine-structure image by application of an objectness fine filter;
- fit the coarse-structure image into an atlas of a heart, wherein sectional areas for transitions from aorta and pulmonary artery to the ventricles are defined for the atlas of the heart;
- generate a blood-vessel binary image by applying the sectional areas to the fine-structure image and removing structures in the fine-structure image that arise from the ventricles;
- generate a ventricle binary image by applying the sectional areas to the cardiac-region binary image and removing structures in the cardiac-region binary image that arise from the blood vessels;
- and
- display the blood-vessel binary image and/or the ventricle binary image on a screen, to output it/them on a printer and/or to store it/them in a data storage medium.
10 more elements
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing in the memory one or more programs comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a system, cause the system to:
- receive a CT image of a cardiac region of a person, the CT image depicting with contrast enhancement via a contrast agent a right ventricle, a left ventricle and blood vessels comprising a pulmonary artery and an aorta;
- generate a cardiac-region binary image from the received CT image by application of a grey-scale threshold method;
- generate a coarse-structure image from the cardiac-region binary image by application of an objectness coarse filter;
- generate a fine-structure image from the cardiac-region binary image by application of an objectness fine filter;
- fit the coarse-structure image into an atlas of a heart, wherein sectional areas for transitions from aorta and pulmonary artery to the ventricles are defined for the atlas of the heart;
- generate a blood-vessel binary image from the fine-structure image by application of the sectional areas to the fine-structure image and removal of structures from the fine-structure image that arise from the ventricles;
- generate a ventricle binary image from the cardiac-region binary image by application of the sectional areas to the cardiac-region binary image and removal of structures from the cardiac-region binary image that arise from the blood vessels;
- and
- display the blood-vessel binary image and/or the ventricle binary image on a screen and/or outputting the blood-vessel binary image and/or the ventricle binary image on a printer and/or storing the blood-vessel binary image and/or the ventricle binary image in a data storage medium.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.