Patent Document ID: 6058322
Application ID: 08900361
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-aided method for classifying a digitized medical image of interest, comprising: a) locating at least one candidate abnormality in the digitized medical image of interest; b) determining a region in which the at least one located candidate abnormality is located; c) extracting features from at least one of 1) the at least one located candidate abnormality and 2) said region in which said at least one located candidate abnormality is located; d) applying the extracted features to a neural network to produce a classification result; e) calculating a likelihood of malignancy of said at least one candidate abnormality using at least one of the following equations, ##EQU16## wherein x is the classification result produced by the neural network, M(x) is the probability density function of the classification result x that said at least one candidate abnormality is actually malignant, B(x) is the analogous probability density function for actually benign cases, .eta. is the prevalence of malignant cases in a population studied; and f) displaying the calculated likelihood of malignancy.