Patent ID: 8208992

Claim:
An image diagnosis support apparatus comprising: a display unit configured to display an image; a processing unit configured to control the image displayed by the display unit; and a non-transitory storage unit configured to store an image diagnosis support program including instructions executable by the processing unit, wherein the image diagnosis support program executable by the processing unit comprises: an image acquisition section configured for acquiring a tomographic thoracic image including an organ of interest of an object; a reference region extraction section configured for extracting a reference region representing a reference in the organ of interest from the tomographic thoracic image acquired by the image acquisition section; an organ region extraction section configured for extracting an organ region representing the organ of interest from the tomographic thoracic image acquired by the image acquisition section; an organ shape information calculation section configured for calculating organ shape information regarding the shape of the organ of interest from the reference region extracted by the reference region extraction section and the organ region extracted by the organ region extraction section; and a display control section configured for displaying on a display device the organ shape information calculated by the organ shape information calculation section, wherein the reference region extraction section extracts a rib region by performing threshold processing on the tomographic thoracic image, and extracts a reference line by interconnecting end portions of the rib region or end portion points near the end portions, and the organ shape information calculation section calculates for each specific point of plural reference line points that are on the reference line, a thickness of a thoracic wall, for an entirety of the thoracic wall, by performing a threshold processing from said each specific point towards a lung field.