Patent ID: 7876939

Claim:
An automated method for determining a bound on the error of a size change measurement, the method comprising the steps of: scanning a body part with an imaging system to produce a first set of imaging data; identifying at least one target lesion in the imaging data; rescanning the body part so as to produce a second set of imaging data; identifying the at least one target lesion in the second set of imaging data; measuring the at least one target lesion as imaged in both the first set of imaging data and the second set of imaging data to determine a first apparent target lesion size corresponding to the first set of imaging data and a second apparent target lesion size corresponding to the second set of imaging data; estimating a change in size by comparing the first and second apparent lesion sizes; and estimating a variance where the variance includes a set of variance measurements from a plurality of factors selected from the group consisting of nodule form, scanner parameters, patient factors, algorithm factors, operator factors, nodule tissue, scanner point spread function, patient motion, features of the at least one target lesion, features of adjacent structures, features of the imaging system including its inherent resolution, and noise present in the image so as to determine a bound on the change in size measurement.