Patent ID: 8229195

Claim:
A method for verifying detection of a lung nodule in a chest radiographic image, comprising: (a) providing a sub-image of the chest radiographic image, wherein the sub-image contains a detected nodule; (b) matching a curve to a plurality of pixels in the sub-image; (c) determining a confidence value for individual pixels in the plurality of pixels in the sub-image, wherein the confidence value for each individual pixel represents how well the curve is matched to the individual pixel; (d) generating a confidence image consisting of the confidence values at the position of the respective individual pixel; (e) identifying separated regions of pixels within the confidence image which have a confidence value greater than a threshold confidence value; (f) generating a filtered confidence image consisting of the separated regions of the confidence image which are larger than a threshold area; (g) determining a histogram of values characteristic for the matching of the curve wherein the filtered confidence image is used as a mask, such that only values are considered for the histogram which correspond to the separated regions of the filtered confidence image; (h) determining at least one statistical measure of the histogram; and (i) verifying the detection of the lung nodule based on the at least one statistical measure.