Patent ID: 7747050

Claim:
An image registration system for correlating a current image with a previous image, said system comprising: an image processing subsystem configured to identify anatomical parts of interest on at least one current image of a patient's anatomy, the at least one current image obtained by an image modality during a medical exam of the patient, and register the at least one current image of the patient from the current medical exam with at least one image from a previous medical exam of the patient and compare the at least one current image and at least one previous image using a metric that measures the similarity of the at least one current image and the at least one previous image based on the anatomical parts of interest in the at least one current image and the at least one previous image, wherein said image processing subsystem identifies a corresponding previous image for a current image based on said metric, wherein said metric is a mean square image-to-image metric that compares gray-scale intensity of the at least one current image with the at least one previous image, wherein a lower metric value indicates a higher correlation between the images; and a matching table identifying said current image and said corresponding previous image, wherein said matching table is used to automatically retrieve said corresponding previous image when said current image is displayed, wherein said matching table is configured for use with a user interface for user selection to automatically link said current image and said corresponding previous image for display.