Patent ID: 8175350

Claim:
A method for use in a computer system associated with a medical imaging device for use in prostate biopsy planning and targeting, comprising: obtaining an electronic image of a prostate of a patient; utilizing a predefined deformable prostrate shape model, supported by said computer system, to identify at least one region of interest on said prostate image for potential biopsy, wherein said predefined deformable shape model comprises an average shape of a plurality of prostate images and includes a cancer probability map identifying one or more prostate regions statistically likely to have cancer and wherein utilizing said shape model includes: deforming the predefined deformable shape model to fit the electronic image of the prostate; and; identifying said at least one region of interest based on the one or more prostate regions statistically likely to have cancer as deformed to fit the electronic image of the prostate; utilizing a knowledge based system, supported by said computer system, to examine said region of interest on said prostate image, wherein said knowledge-based system generates an output indicating a desirability of performing biopsy on each said region of interest.