Identification of candidate elements in images for determination of disease state using atlas elements

A method comprising:

• providing a quantitative image and at least one additional image of a subject, each of the quantitative image and the at least one additional image comprising elements:
• providing an atlas corresponding to the subject, the atlas comprising atlas elements, each of the atlas elements comprising a metric distribution:
• segmenting the quantitative image into a plurality of structure elements, the structure elements being groups of the elements of the quantitative image, the structure elements each corresponding to an anatomical structure in the whole body image, wherein segmenting the quantitative image into a plurality of structure elements includes identifying each of the plurality of structure elements based on two or more of size, morphology, and location of each of the respective structure elements:
• determining a correspondence map relating the structure elements of the quantitative image to corresponding atlas elements of an atlas by comparing one of size, morphology, and positioning of the structure elements of the quantitative image to the corresponding atlas elements, wherein the atlas elements each correspond to a respective anatomical structure;
• identifying, using the atlas, candidate elements of the whole body quantitative image of a subject by comparing a value of the structure elements of the whole body quantitative image to metric distributions of the atlas elements corresponding to the structure elements;
• localizing the candidate elements of the whole body quantitative image to corresponding elements of the at least one additional image of the subject;
• classifying the candidate elements into at least one class based on properties of the corresponding elements of the at least one additional image;
• and
• determining a disease state of the candidate elements by analyzing the at least one class of the at least one additional image corresponding to the candidate elements.

A system comprising:

• at least one processing unit;
• and
• at least one computer readable media encoded with instructions which, when executed cause the system to:
• provide a quantitative image and at least one additional image of a subject, each of the quantitative image and the at least one additional image comprising elements;
• provide an atlas corresponding to the subject, the atlas comprising atlas elements, each of the atlas elements comprising a metric distribution;
• segment the quantitative image into a plurality of structure elements, the structure elements being groups of the elements of the quantitative image, the structure elements each corresponding to an anatomical structure in the whole body image, wherein segmenting the quantitative image into a plurality of structure elements includes identifying each of the plurality of structure elements based on two or more of size, morphology, and location of each of the respective structure elements;
• determine a correspondence map relating the structure elements of the quantitative image to corresponding atlas elements by comparing one of size, morphology, and positioning of the structure elements of the quantitative image to the corresponding atlas elements, each of the atlas elements corresponding to an anatomical structure;
• determine candidate elements by comparing a value of the structure elements of the quantitative image with the metric distribution of related atlas elements of the correspondence map;
• localize the candidate elements to corresponding elements of the at least one additional image;
• classify the candidate elements into at least one class based on properties of the corresponding elements of the at least one additional image;
• and
• determine a disease state of the candidate elements by analyzing the at least one class of the at least one additional image corresponding to the candidate elements.