Medical image data alignment apparatus, method and program

A medical image data alignment method for aligning specified first medical image data holding form information of a tissue to be objected of a specified subject, obtained by a first kind image diagnostic apparatus, and specified second medical image data holding function information of the tissue to be objected of the specified subject, obtained by a second kind image diagnostic apparatus, comprising the steps of:

• adding first coordinate information to be an index for alignment to the specified first medical image data;
• determining a relative positional relationship between a coordinate system to which the specified second medical image data belongs and a coordinate system to which atlas second medical image data belongs based on the correlation of mutual image signal values of the specified second medical image data and the atlas second medical image data which is created based on a plurality of second medical image data holding function information of tissues to be objected of a plurality of standard subjects respectively, obtained by the second kind image diagnostic apparatus, which is created so as to be a standard of the second medical image data, and to which second coordinate information to be an index of the alignment is added, and determining, based on the relative positional relationship, a first transformation matrix for transforming one image data out of the specified second medical image data and the atlas second medical image data into the image data in the coordinate system to which the other image data belongs;
• determining a relative positional relationship between the coordinate system to which the atlas second medical image data belongs and the coordinate system to which the specified first medical image data belongs based on the first coordinate information and the second coordinate information, and determining, based on the relative positional relationship, a second transformation matrix for transforming one image data out of the atlas second medical image data and the specified first medical image data into the image data in the coordinate system to which the other image data belongs;
• and
• aligning the specified first medical image data and the specified second medical image data using the first transformation matrix and the second transformation matrix.

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing medical image data alignment program for causing a computer to execute processing for aligning specified first medical image data holding form information of a tissue to be objected of a specified subject, obtained by a first kind image diagnostic apparatus, and specified second medical image data holding function information of the tissue to be objected of the specified subject, obtained by a second kind image diagnostic apparatus, the program causing the computer to execute the steps of:

• adding first coordinate information to be an index for alignment to the specified first medical image data;
• determining a relative positional relationship between a coordinate system to which the specified second medical image data belongs and a coordinate system to which atlas second medical image data belongs based on the correlation of mutual image signal values of the specified second medical image data and the atlas second medical image data which is created based on a plurality of second medical image data holding function information of tissues to be objected of a plurality of standard subjects respectively, obtained by the second kind image diagnostic apparatus, which is created so as to be a standard of the second medical image data, and to which second coordinate information to be an index of the alignment is added, and determining, based on the relative positional relationship, a first transformation matrix for transforming one image data out of the specified second medical image data and the atlas second medical image data into the image data in the coordinate system to which the other image data belongs;
• determining a relative positional relationship between the coordinate system to which the atlas second medical image data belongs and the coordinate system to which the specified first medical image data belongs based on the first coordinate information and the second coordinate information, and determining, based on the relative positional relationship, a second transformation matrix for transforming one image data out of the atlas second medical image data and the specified first medical image data into the image data in the coordinate system to which the other image data belongs;
• and
• aligning the specified first medical image data and the specified second medical image data using the first transformation matrix and the second transformation matrix.