Patent ID: 8867822

Claim:
A method for coronary artery calcium scoring, the method using one or more processors, comprising: receiving an image of a heart; registering anatomical features of the heart in the image with anatomical features of a model image illustrating coronary arteries of a heart; using one or more processors, to identify a plurality of coronary arteries in the image of the heart with reference to the coronary arteries in the model image based on a result of the registering between the image of the heart and the model image, using one or more processors to determine, for each respective plurality of plaques appearing in the image of the heart, that a respective plaque is determined to be in one of the identified plurality of coronary arteries or that the respective plaque is not present in any of the identified plurality of coronary arteries; using one or more processors, to label each respective one of the plurality of plaques which is determined to be present in the identified coronary arteries in the image of the heart to a respective coronary artery in which the plaque is present based on a result of the determining; scoring each respective artery of the identified plurality of coronary arteries to determine individual coronary artery calcium scores for the respective coronary arteries based on a result of the labeling and a result of the determining as to which of the identified plurality of coronary arteries a plaque is present or the plaque is not present in the identified plurality of coronary arteries, modifying the individual coronary artery calcium scores of the respective coronary arteries using weight factors based on X-ray attenuation for the respective plaques and determining an overall coronary artery calcium score for the heart by adding the modified individual coronary artery calcium scores; and displaying the individual coronary artery calcium scores and the overall coronary artery calcium score.