Patent ID: 7860283
Filing Date: 2010-12-28
Classification: A61B,G06T

Abstract:
1. A method of presenting information associated with a blood vessel to a user for assessment of the blood vessel, the method comprising: presenting a two-dimensional slice of three-dimensional imaging data of a blood vessel to a user in a first user interface; receiving a blood vessel selection from the user, wherein the user selects the blood vessel through an interaction with the first user interface; identifying a blood vessel path associated with the received blood vessel selection from the three-dimensional imaging data; presenting an intensity of the selected blood vessel along the identified blood vessel path to the user for analysis of the selected blood vessel; receiving imaging data including a heart region, a pulmonary artery region, an ascending aorta region, and a thoraco-abdominal aorta region of a patient; identifying the heart region from the imaging data; analyzing the identified heart region to detect a coronary pathology; identifying an ascending aorta object from the ascending aorta region of the imaging data; analyzing the identified ascending aorta object to detect an aortic dissection; identifying an abdominal aorta object from the thoraco-abdominal aorta region; analyzing the identified abdominal aorta object to detect an aortic dissection; identifying a left main pulmonary artery object and a right main pulmonary artery object from the pulmonary artery region of the imaging data; analyzing the identified left main pulmonary artery object and the identified right main pulmonary artery object to detect a pulmonary embolism; and generating a report including any detected coronary pathology, any detected aortic dissection, and any detected pulmonary embolism, wherein identifying the heart region comprises: projecting the received imaging data into a first plane of three dimensions of the received imaging data; applying a first threshold to the first plane of data, wherein the first threshold is selected to eliminate a first pixel associated with air; identifying a largest first connected component from the first threshold applied data; calculating a first center of mass of the identified largest first connected component to define a first coordinate and a second coordinate; projecting the received imaging data into a second plane of the three dimensions, wherein the second plane is perpendicular to the first plane; applying a second threshold to the second plane of data, wherein the second threshold is selected to eliminate a second pixel associated with air; identifying a largest second connected component from the second threshold applied data; and calculating a second center of mass of the identified largest second connected component to define a third coordinate; wherein a center of a heart region is defined from the defined first coordinate, the defined second coordinate, and the defined third coordinate; and further wherein the heart region has a width in each of the three dimensions.