Patent ID: 7957568

Claim:
An image interpretation report creating apparatus to be connected to a server for storing report data representing image interpretation reports and at least one image display terminal for displaying examination images for diagnoses, and used for creating an image interpretation report, said apparatus comprising: follow-up observation examination determining means for determining whether or not this examination is an object of follow-up observation; previous report determining means for determining, as previous report data, report data related to a previous examination which is the same examination performed on the same patient as those in this examination from among the report data stored in said server in the case where said follow-up observation examination determining means determines that this examination is an object of follow-up observation; previous report data acquiring means for acquiring the previous report data determined by said previous report determining means from said server, said previous report data including attendant information of a previous key image used for image interpretation in the previous examination; image data acquiring means for acquiring image data representing at least examination images at this time from image data storing means in which plural pieces of image data representing examination images are stored; key image estimating means for estimating, as a key image in this examination, an image at a slice position corresponding to that of the previous key image from among the examination images at this time based on a slice thickness and at least one of an image number, an image position, and a slice position included in the attendant information of the previous key image; and image data output means for outputting image data representing examination images including the key image to said at least one image display terminal such that the key image is displayed in a predetermined format.