Patent ID: 8577101

Claim:
A method for assessing the amount of 3-dimensional volumetric change of an object in a longitudinal series of medical images created by an acquisition device consisting of the following steps performed at each imaging time point: a. Defining an inner boundary region completely inside the object being assessed; b. Defining an outer boundary region completely outside the object being assessed; c. Identifying corresponding landmarks surrounding the object being assessed; d. Producing signal intensity distribution descriptive statistics for the inner boundary region and for the outer boundary region of the object being assessed; e. obtaining a point spread function estimate, and a signal to noise ratio of the acquisition device; f. identifying a computational edge in three dimensions using an edge detector that utilizes data comprising the signal intensity distribution descriptive statistics for the inner boundary region and for the outer boundary region, in combination with, the point spread function estimate and the signal to noise ratio of the acquisition device; g. calculating a set of high confidence surface patches from said computational edge; h. calculating a correspondence using a deformable registration method between the set of high confidence surface patches at a first imaging timepoint in the series of medical images and the set of high confidence surface patches at each subsequent imaging timepoint in the series of medical images; i. using a rigid registration technique based on the corresponding landmarks surrounding the object being assessed; and j. calculating a three dimensional change over time of the object being assessed.