Patent ID: 7949166

Claim:
A diagnosis support system that supports diagnosis based on interpretation of a given medical image by searching case information sets registered with a database for case information sets including case images of similar pictorial characteristics to the given medical image and by displaying the case information sets including the case images, the system comprising: region of interest setting means for setting a region of interest in each of medical images obtained in chronological order, by displaying the medical images on a monitor screen and by receiving a region specifying operation on at least one of the medical images; similar case search means for extracting through search of the database a case information set including case images each having a region representing pictorial characteristics that are similar to pictorial characteristics of a corresponding one of the regions of interest having been set by the region of interest setting means; case information display means for displaying all the case images belonging to the case information set extracted by the similar case search means on the monitor screen in chronological order; and further comprising corresponding region estimating means for estimating in a second one of the medical images a region representing a target that is the same as a target represented by a region specified in a first one of the medical images according to coordinate information identifying the region specified in the first medical image, wherein the region of interest setting means receives specification of the region of interest by the region specifying operation only in one of the medical images and sets the region of interest in each of the medical images by causing the corresponding region estimating means to estimate the region of interest in each of the remaining images by supplying the coordinate information identifying the specified region thereto.