Patent ID: 6976013

Claim:
A system for estimating a medical condition associated with a target site in an animal body, the system comprising: a first database that contains R-dimensional vector values x(q) of reference values of measurements that characterize one or more medical conditions of the target site in the animal body, with q in Q1 or q in Q2, where Q1 and Q2 are mutually exclusive index sets, where each vector value x(q) in the first database is associated with a first set S1 of medical conditions, corresponding to q being a member of Q1, or with a second set S2 of medical conditions, corresponding to q being a member of Q2, where S1 and S2 are mutually exclusive and R is a selected positive integer; a second database that contains vector values y in a set S3 of one or more measurements made at or adjacent to the target site, where y is a P-dimensional vector and P is a selected positive integer with P≦R; and a computer that is programmed to form a non-negative, real-valued medical condition function of a metric distance between the vector x(q) and one or more of the vector values y, where the medical condition function distinguishes between a first medical condition in which y is more likely associated with the first set S1 and a second medical condition in which y is more likely associated with the second set S2.