Patent ID: 7916923

Claim:
A diagnosis support apparatus comprising: a processor programmed to execute; an extraction unit configured to extract an isolated shadow as a candidate of a lesion from image data; a first calculation unit configured to calculate feature amount of the isolated shadow extracted by said extraction unit; a change unit configured to change a grayscale conversion characteristic based on the feature amount calculated by said first calculation unit; a grayscale conversion processing unit configured to execute a grayscale conversion on the image data using the grayscale conversion characteristic changed by said change unit; a determination unit configured to determine whether or not said extraction unit have extracted a plurality of isolated shadows; a second calculation unit configured to calculate tumor likelihood degree of each of the plurality of isolated shadows if said determination unit determined that said extraction unit have extracted a plurality of isolated shadows; and a selection unit configured to select an isolated shadow from the plurality of isolated shadows in descending order of the tumor likelihood degree calculated by said second calculation unit, wherein said change unit, when it is determined by said determination unit that said extraction unit have extracted one isolated shadow, changes the grayscale characteristic based on the feature amount of the one isolated shadow without calculation by said second calculation unit; and said change unit, when it is determined by said determination unit that said extraction unit have extracted the plurality of isolated shadows, changes the grayscale characteristic in sequence based on the feature amount of the isolated shadow selected by said selection unit.