Applications of automatic anatomy recognition in medical tomographic imagery based on fuzzy anatomy models

A system, comprising:

• a database that stores image data from patient image sets;
• an imaging device that obtains an image of a particular patient body region of interest, wherein slice locations associated with the particular patient body region of interest are mapped from a scanner coordinate system to slice locations in a standardized anatomic space;
• a memory storing computer instructions;
• and
• a processor that processes said computer instructions to build a fuzzy anatomy model of the body region of interest from existing patient image sets, uses automatic anatomy recognition (AAR) to recognize and delineate objects in the particular patient body region of interest, and provides contours of delineated objects,
• wherein the processor further processes said computer instructions to identify where a volume-to-area correlation becomes maximal for one or more body regions of the patient.

A device comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the device to:
• build a fuzzy anatomy model of a body region of interest from an existing set of patient images for the body region;
• obtain an image of a particular patient body region of interest, wherein the image is obtained based on mapping slice locations associated with the particular patient body region of interest from a scanner coordinate system to slice locations in a standardized anatomic space;
• identify where a volume-to-area correlation becomes maximal for one or more body regions of the patient;
• use automatic anatomy recognition (AAR) to recognize objects in the particular patient body region of interest and to output spatial information associated with the recognized objects;
• and
• delineate, using automatic anatomy recognition (AAR) and based at least on the spatial information associated with the recognized objects, the recognized objects to determine one or more contours or boundaries of the recognized objects.