Patent Document ID: 20090252393
Application ID: 12294187
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. Process for the automatic recognition of abnormalities in anatomical structures, comprising the operations of: acquiring ( 10 ) a plurality of two-dimensional images of at least one portion of a patient's body capable of forming a three-dimensional representation of at least one anatomical structure under observation, segmenting ( 20 ) a region of interest in the said three-dimensional representation which potentially contains anomalies, selecting ( 30 , 40 ) volume image elements (voxels) from the segmented region which are likely to belong to abnormalities in the anatomical structure represented, on the basis of predetermined morphological parameters, agglomerating ( 60 ) regions of voxels into analysis units according to a predetermined proximity criterion, and classifying ( 70 ) of the said voxels as elements suspected of belong to abnormalities or as elements which do not belong to abnormalities, wherein the said stage of agglomerating ( 60 ) the regions of voxels into analysis units is performed by grouping together the voxels on the basis of the spatial density distribution of the voxels selected, wherein the process includes the merging of analysis units lying within a predetermined distance from the centre of mass of the surface portion of a reference analysis unit, and wherein the distance of each voxel explored of an analysis unit overlapping or adjacent the reference analysis unit is calculated as the length of the minimum path over the segmented surface of said anatomical structure, which links said voxel to the centre of mass of the reference analysis unit.