Patent ID: 6656121
Filing Date: 2003-12-02
Classification: A61B

Abstract:
A method of quantitatively assessing fat content in a target organ from an ultrasound visual image, the method comprising:obtaining an ultrasound visual image of the target organ; setting a target region and comparative regions in the obtained image; measuring a representative gray level of the target region from a gray level distribution of pixels of the target region; measuring representative gray levels of the comparative regions from the gray level distribution of pixels of the comparative regions; quantifying the representative gray level of the target region as relative values with regard to the representative gray levels of the comparative regions; and assessing fat content corresponding to the quantified representative gray level of the target region, wherein said target region measuring includes: obtaining a distribution pattern of pixels of the target region; obtaining histogram distributions of the number of pixels with regard to gray levels of each pixel of the target region; and determining the gray level of one histogram of the histogram distributions as the representative gray level, and wherein the representative gray level of the target region is determined as a gray level of a histogram positioning at a point of inflection in the histogram distribution.