Device and method for calculating atrial wall thickness

A device of calculating an atrial wall thickness, the device comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a network interface;
• a memory that loads a computer program executed by the processor;
• and
• a storage that stores large-capacity network data and the computer program,
• wherein the computer program comprises, by the one or more processors,
• (A) an operation of receiving image data for a patient's atrium as input data;
• (B) an operation of calculating endocardial and epicardial borders corresponding to starting and ending points of the atrial wall thickness from the received input data;
• and
• (C) an operation of calculating the patient's atrial wall thickness using the calculated boundaries of the endocardium and epicardium,
• wherein the image data for the patient's atrium received in the operation (A) is a plurality of mask label image data for respective tomographic images of the patient's atrium acquired from computed tomography (CT) scans for the patient's atrium,
• wherein the mask label image data is data in which one or more pixels corresponding to an atrial wall region including the patient's atrium and an inner region of the atrium, other regions within the patient's heart disposed around the patient's atrium, and regions other than the patient's heart, respectively, are labeled with different numerals for the respective regions, and
• wherein the operation (B) comprises at least one of:
• (B-1) extracting one or more pixels corresponding to an atrial wall region from the received input data, and applying a convex hull algorithm thereto to calculate a three-dimensional atrial envelope for the patient's atrium;
• (B-2) setting an initial boundary condition for performing a Poisson equation on the calculated three-dimensional atrial envelope;
• (B-3) repeatedly performing the Poisson equation N times (N is a natural number) on the three-dimensional atrial envelope, and calculating a border of an atrial wall region in the three-dimensional atrial envelope and a border of a non-eroded region in an open region;
• and
• (B-4) performing binarization for a region corresponding to the atrium and a region other than the atrium based on the calculated borders of the atrial wall region and the non-eroded region in the open region.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a computer program, the computer program comprising:

• (AA) receiving, in connection with a computing device, image data for the patient's atrium as input data;
• (BB) calculating endocardial and epicardial borders corresponding to starting and ending points of the atrial wall thickness from the received input data;
• and
• (CC) calculating the patient's atrial wall thickness using the calculated boundaries of the endocardium and epicardium,
• wherein the image data for the patient's atrium received in the step (AA) is a plurality of mask label image data for respective tomographic images of the patient's atrium acquired from computed tomography (CT) scans for the patient's atrium,
• wherein the mask label image data is data in which one or more pixels corresponding to an atrial wall region including the patient's atrium and an inner region of the atrium, other regions within the patient's heart disposed around the patient's atrium, and regions other than the patient's heart, respectively, are labeled with different numerals for the respective regions, and
• wherein the step (BB) comprises at least one of:
• (BB-1) extracting one or more pixels corresponding to an atrial wall region from the received input data, and applying a convex hull algorithm thereto to calculate a three-dimensional atrial envelope for the patient's atrium;
• (BB-2) setting an initial boundary condition for performing a Poisson equation on the calculated three-dimensional atrial envelope;
• (BB-3) repeatedly performing the Poisson equation N times (N is a natural number) on the three-dimensional atrial envelope, and calculating a border of an atrial wall region in the three-dimensional atrial envelope and a border of a non-eroded region in an open region;
• and
• (BB-4) performing binarization for a region corresponding to the atrium and a region other than the atrium based on the calculated borders of the atrial wall region and the non-eroded region in the open region.