Medical image processing apparatus, method, and program
AssigneeFUJIFILM Corporation
InventorOsamu Mizuno
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of detecting a pleural plaque candidate from a medical image, which includes the steps of obtaining a medical image representing a subject, extracting a lung field area from the obtained medical image, comparing a contour of the extracted lung field with a comparison contour obtained by causing an active curve, having an initial shape in the lung field area and repeats deformation according to a certain deformation trend, to converge after repeating the deformation and detecting a depressed portion of the lung field, and determining the detected depressed portion as a first pleural plaque candidate.
Claims11
A medical image processing apparatus, comprising:
- a medical image obtaining unit configured to obtain a medical image representing a subject;
- an anatomical information extraction unit configured to extract a lung contour from the obtained medical image, said lung contour finely showing a depressed shape portion therein;
- a depressed portion detection unit configured to compare the extracted lung contour with a comparison contour showing a shape of a lung smoother than the lung contour and that detects a different portion bet en the extracted lung contour and the comparison contour as a depressed portion of the extracted lung, wherein the comparison contour is obtained from the medical image by deforming an active curve having an initial shape in the lung a plurality of times until given conditions are met according to a certain deformation trend;
- and
- a pleural plaque candidate detection unit configured to determine the detected depressed portion as a first pleural plaque candidate.
A medical image processing method, comprising the steps of:
- obtaining, by a computer, a medical image representing a subject;
- extracting a lung contour from the obtained medical image, said lung contour finely showing a depressed shape portion therein;
- comparing, by a computer, the extracted lung contour with a comparison contour showing a shape of a lung smoother than the lung contour and detecting a different portion between the extracted lung contour and the comparison contour as a depressed portion of the extracted lung, wherein the comparison contour is obtained from the medical image by deforming an active curve having an initial shape in the lung a plurality of times until a given conditions are met according to a certain deformation trend;
- and
- determining the detected depressed portion as a first pleural plaque candidate.
A non-transitory computer readable recording medium on which is recorded a program for causing a computer to function as:
- a medical image obtaining unit that obtains a medical image representing a subject;
- an anatomical information extraction unit that extracts a lung contour from the obtained medical image, said lung contour finely showing a depressed shape portion therein;
- a depressed portion detection unit that compares the lung contour with a comparison contour showing a shape of a lung smoother than the lung contour and that detects a different portion between the extracted lung contour and the comparison contour as a depressed portion of the extracted lung, wherein the comparison contour is obtained from the medical image by deforming an active curve having an initial shape in the lung a plurality of times until given conditions are met according to a certain deformation trend;
- and
- a pleural plaque candidate detection unit that determines the detected depressed portion as a first pleural plaque candidate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.