Patent ID: 6904163

Claim:
A tomographic image reading method for extracting a comparison image corresponding to a diagnostic image, and displaying the images, said diagnostic image being a slice image which is one of first tomographic images, said comparison image being a slice image which is one of second tomographic images which are taken at the time different from the time when the first tomographic images are taken, body section being a slice plane in the X-Y axial direction and body axis being in the Z axial direction, said method comprising the steps of: inputting said first tomographic images and said second tomographic images; generating a first projection image from said first tomographic images and a second projection image from said second tomographic images, wherein the direction of projection for generating each of said first and second projection images is perpendicular to the Z axial direction; measuring shift amount between said first projection image and said second projection image by searching said second projection image for the same area as a template, said template being generated from said first projection image such that said template includes an area in which a specific object image exists; correcting the slice position according to said shift amount between said first projection image and said second projection image; and displaying said diagnostic image and said comparison image at a corrected slice position to a monitor; wherein the first projection image and the second projection image are used to find a comparison image whose slice position corresponds to a slice position of a diagnostic image, so that the corrected slice position is used to find a corresponding slice position.