Patent Document ID: 9367904
Application ID: 12596847
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for reducing artifacts in medical imaging comprising the steps of: storing in a memory of an image device having an image processor a set of pre-captured images of a patient taken before and after injection of a contrast agent, wherein the pre-captured images are obtained at different times from an earliest pre-captured image to a latest pre-captured image; selecting anatomical regions of interest in the pre-captured images taken before the injection; selecting locally corresponding matching regions in the pre-captured images taken after the injection, wherein at least one of the regions of interest corresponds to a first matching region of at least one first pre-captured image, and an adjacent region of interest corresponds to a second matching region of at least one second pre-captured image; comparing the selected regions of interest in the pre-captured images taken before the injection to the locally corresponding matching regions in the pre-captured images taken after the injection, thereby creating a spatial-temporal vector field of their similarity; warping the spatial-temporal vector field by non-planar interpolation, wherein the warping is gradually applied to convert the latest pre-captured image into the earliest pre-captured image which is not warped at all, thereby obtaining a warp image having maximized similarity and reduced artefacts that were distributed over multiple pre-captured images and wherein the spatial-temporal displacement of the selected regions is varied by interpolation; applying the warp image to any pre-captured image to produce a resulting image, wherein the applying the warp image to any pre-captured image is subtracting the warp image from the pre-captured image; and displaying the resulting image on a display.