Diagnostic imaging method
OwnerScott Rosainventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of identifying injury to soft connective tissues in complicated body joints deploys use of motion x-ray images as the joint moves to identify suspected abnormal pathology followed by Dynamic Upright MRI images of the joint under conditions that express the abnormal pathology. The Dynamic Upright MRI parameters are based on the suspected pathology. The method is particularly useful in detecting disco/ligamentous and other injuries that often times will not be visualized on conventional recumbent MRI, or static x-rays.
Claims21
A medical imaging method for joints in living creatures, the method comprising the steps of:
- a. acquiring a dynamic sequence of x-ray images of at least one joint of a living creature over a range of motion,
- b. analyzing the dynamic x-ray image frames to identify at least a location within one posture position presenting a possible abnormal pathology,
- c. determining Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) parameters for imaging the possible abnormal pathology in greater detail than the x-ray images,
- d. acquiring at least one series of multiple MRI images at positions and locations with the potential abnormal pathology with said parameters wherein the MRI parameters include obtaining one or more MRI images at the same posture that presented the possible abnormal pathology, wherein the MRI images in the at least one series are of parallel spaced apart planes in the living creature, each spaced apart plane being separated from the most adjacent spaced apart plane by a spacing of not more than 3 mm.
A non-transient computer-readable medium having stored thereon software that is operative to direct a general purpose computer to carry out the steps of:
- a. analyzing a sequence of digital x-ray image of a joint of a living creature in motion to:
- i. identifying the boney structures in each image, in the sequence
- ii. comparing for each image in the sequence the relative position of at least one reference position on each bony structure with respect to another reference position on each adjacent bony structure to develop at least one relative displacement parameter of the reference position of each bony structure,
- iii. comparing each relative displacement parameter for each boney structure against a nominal reference value from a first reference table to develop a first figure of merit representing the abnormality for each boney structure in each image frame,
- developing a second figure of merit for the abnormal pathology of each image frame from the cumulative values of the first figure of merit associated with each boney structure in the image frame,
- b. selecting at least one image frame based on the second figure of merit for acquiring one of more MRI images wherein the joint is in the same posture as in the image frame selected from the second figure of merit,
- c. determining the MRI parameters for imaging the possible abnormal pathology in greater detail than the x-ray images from a third reference table.
A non-transient computer-readable medium having stored thereon software according to 18 wherein the at least one joint is the human cervical spine and the living creature is a human being disposed in an upright posture.
A non-transient computer-readable medium having stored thereon software according to 15 that is further operative to identify reference topograpy in MRI images thus acquired to define the slice orientation for additional MRI images to be subsequently acquired.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.