Patent Document ID: 8116546
Application ID: 13091196
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of providing a malignancy classification based on MRI data for a region of lung tissue, the method comprising: a) setting time points T 1 and T 2 measured from a time point T o at or near an injection of a contrast agent, time point T 1 representing a wash-in time point for a selected region of lung tissue and time point T 2 representing a wash-out time point for the selected region of lung tissue; b) wherein malignancy is indicated by a second concentration value of the injected contrast agent correlated with signal intensity of MRI for the selected region of lung tissue at T 2 being less than or substantially equal to a first concentration value of the contrast agent correlated with signal intensity of MRI for the selected region of lung tissue at T 1 , and non-malignancy is indicated by a third concentration value of the injected contrast agent correlated with signal intensity of MRI for the selected region of lung tissue at T 1 being less than or substantially equal to a fourth concentration value of the injected contrast agent concentration correlated with signal intensity of MRI for the selected region of lung tissue at T 2 ; c) wherein the setting of the time points T 1 and T 2 is determined according to a calibration map obtained by calculating concentration values of injected contrast agent at initial time points T 1 and T 2 arranged in a grid with axes K and v, K representing microvascular permeability from a minimum to a maximum and v representing extracellular volume fraction from a minimum to a maximum, assigning one of multiple categories to each grid point based on a degree of change in concentration values of the injected contrast agent between initial time point T 1 and initial time point T 2 and adjusting the time points T 1 and T 2 so that the resulting calibration map indicates, according to a preselected condition, grid points of a first category having a relatively high degree of change and grid points of a second category having a relatively low degree of change; d) obtaining by MRI scanning a first sample concentration value of the contrast agent correlated to detected signal intensity for the region of lung tissue at set time point T 1 and a second sample concentration value of the contrast agent correlated to detected signal intensity for the region of lung tissue at set time point T 2 ; e) determining a malignancy classification for the region of lung tissue by comparing the obtained sample concentration values with a predetermined malignancy profile; and f) outputting a representation of the malignancy classification of the region of lung tissue.