Systems and methods for contouring a set of medical images

A system for contouring a set of medical images, comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• non-transitory, computer-readable storage media having stored thereon an image database for storing a set of medical images and instructions executable by the at least one processor, the instructions comprising:
• an image deformation engine configured to receive a source image and a target image from the set of medical images in the image database, and further configured to use a deformation algorithm with the source image and the target image to generate deformation field data that is indicative of changes between one or more objects from the source image to the target image;
• and
• a contour transformation engine configured to receive source contour data that identifies the one or more objects within the source image, and further configured to use the deformation field data and the source contour data to generate automatic target contour data that identifies the one or more objects within the target image,
• wherein the deformation algorithm includes one or more parameters that are optimized for use with medical images received from a particular user or a particular group of users, and
• wherein the one or more parameters are optimized based at least in part on a contour accuracy metric that estimates a percentage of the automatic target contour data that the particular user or group of users is likely to manually edit.

A method of contouring a set of medical images, comprising:

• receiving a source image from the set of medical images and source contour data associated with the source image, the source contour data identifying one or more obiects within the source image;
• identifying a target image in the set of medical images to contour;
• generating, by a processor, deformation field data from the source image and the target image in accordance with a deformation algorithm, the deformation field data indicative of changes between the one or more objects from the source image to the target image;
• and
• generating, by the processor, automatic target contour data based on the deformation field data and the source contour data, the automatic target contour data identifying the one or more obiects within the target image,
• wherein the set of medical images comprises a plurality of two-dimensional slices of a three-dimensional medical image such that the source image and the target image are disparate slices of the three-dimensional medical image,
• the source image and the target image are non-adjacent image slices in the set of medical images, and
• generating the deformation field data from the source image to the target image comprises:
• generating first intermediary deformation field data between the source image and an intermediary image;
• generating second intermediary deformation field data between the intermediary image and the target image;
• and
• concatenating the first intermediary deformation field data and the second intermediary deformation field data.