Patent ID: 7657299
Filing Date: 2010-02-02
Classification: A61B,C23F,G06K,G06T

Abstract:
1. A fully automated method of determining whether a blood vessel of a patient's vasculature contains plaque by classifying plaque components, comprising computationally processing at least a first processable data type and a second processable data type obtained using at least one non-invasive medical imaging system in order to analyze at least one cross section of a blood vessel of a patient's vasculature using statistical classifiers developed using statistical modeling to determine if the blood vessel comprises at least one tissue correlated with the presence of plaque, in which event the blood vessel is determined to contain plaque, wherein the fully automated method does not require human intervention and wherein at least each of the first and second processable data types are processable magnetic resonance data generated by an MRI instrument and selected from the group consisting of T1-weighted data, T2-weighted data, PDW-weighted data, TOF-weighted data, and data generated by a combination of two or more of the foregoing.