Patent Document ID: 7899225
Application ID: 11553364
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for predicting an evolution of a clinical state of a subject, comprising: determining a present state on a clinical scale, said clinical scale representing various stages of clinical evolution of a clinical state; providing in a computer a statistical image-based predictive model for predicting said evolution of said clinical state, said model incorporating one or more image-derived features derived from an image from at least one volume of interest (VOI) comprising information related to said clinical state, wherein said statistical image-based model is established by providing a correlation function between one or more image features and a future value of a clinical variable that represents a measure on said clinical scale, and establishment of said statistical image-based model is realized by acquiring data from a group of training subjects; collecting image data from said at least one VOI in said subject; deriving in a computer said one or more image features from said collected image data from said subject; using in a computer said one or more derived image features from said at least one VOI of said subject and said predictive model to generate said measure on said clinical scale, wherein said measure is indicative of a future state on said clinical scale providing at least an indication of improvement, stability or degradation of said clinical state with respect to said present state.