Patent ID: 9710915
Date: 2017-07-18
CPC Classifications: A61B,G06F,G06T,G16H

Claim:
1. A method for automatic segmentation of a depiction of a lesion in a functional medical image data set, comprising: loading a medical image data set into a computer, said medical image data set comprising a functional medical image data set and an anatomical image data set, both obtained from a patient but with respectively different imaging modalities, said functional medical image data set and said anatomical image data set being in registration with each other in said medical image data set; in said computer, automatically identifying and delineating an image region in said anatomical image data set that contains a lesion; in said computer, using the registration of said functional image data set and said anatomical image data set to apply the delineation of said image region identified in said anatomical image data set in order to delineate said image region also in said functional medical image data set; in said computer, within the delineated image region in said functional medical image data set, automatically identifying a potential lesion region surrounding a depiction of said lesion in said functional medical image data set, and potential non-background regions depicted in said functional medical image data set; in said computer, automatically identifying a background region in said delineated image region in said functional medical image data set, by subtracting said potential lesion region and said potential non-background regions from the functional medical image data set within said delineated image region; in said computer, segmenting said lesion in said functional medical image data set by differentiating the depiction of the lesion in said functional medical image data set from said background region; and at a display in communication with said computer, depicting the segmented lesion in a display of said functional image data set.