Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Sven Kabus

Tobias Klinder

Cristian Lorenz

Rafael Wiemker

Holger Schmitt

Thomas Buelow

Steffen Renisch

Heike Carolus

Thomas Koehler

Michael Grass

Jens Von Berg

Heinrich Schulz

Alfonso Agatino Isola

Rolf Jürgen Weese

Christoph Neukirchen

Roland Johannes Opfer

Hrishikesh Narayanrao Deshpande

Maria Luiza Bondar

Stéphane Allaire

Bernhard Johannes Brendel

Eberhard Sebastian Hansis

Xiyun Song

Thomas Blaffert

Jens Wiegert

Nicole Schadewaldt

Joerg Sabczynski

Rolf Dieter Bippus

Hans-Aloys Wischmann

Ingwer Curt Carlsen

Hans Barschdorf

Torbjorn Vik

Andre Frank Salomon

Heike Ruppertshofen

John Harold Hipwell

Vasileios Vavourakis

Bjoern Eiben

David John Hawkes

The present invention refers to providing a system that allows to very accurately determine the state of a disease, like COPD, in a patient. The system () comprises a unit () for providing images of the region of interest corresponding to different states of the region of interest, a unit () for elastically registering the images to each other resulting in an elastic registration output, a unit () for determining a specific tissue region in an image, a unit () for determining a specific elastic registration output for the specific tissue region based on the determined elastic registration output, and a unit () for determining an elastic indicator for the specific tissue type based on the specific elastic registration output. Thus, a state of a disease that influences the elastic properties of the specific tissue type can be determined very accurately.

System for determining a tissue-specific property

Systems and methods for iteratively computing an image registration or an image segmentation are driven by an optimization function that includes a similarity measure component whose effect on the iterative computations is relatively mitigated based on a monitoring of volume changes of volume elements at image locations during the iterations. A system and a related method quantify a registration error by applying a series of edge detectors to input images and combining related filter responses into a combined response. The series of filters are parameterized with a filter parameter. An extremal value of the combined response is then found and a filter parameter associated with said extremal value is then returned as output. This filter parameter relates to a registration error at a given image location.

Image processing systems and methods

The invention relates to a system for assisting in evaluating a contour of an anatomic structure () with respect to a dose distribution corresponding to a treatment plan for a radiation therapy treatment of a patient. The system comprises an evaluation unit particularly configured to evaluate the dose distribution in varying distances from the contour of the anatomic structure () to determine at least one point where the evaluated dose distribution fulfills a predetermined condition, and to determine the distance between the at least one point and the contour and/or to visualize the at least one point to a user of the system.

Evaluation of an anatomic structure with respect to a dose distribution in radiation therapy planning

The invention relates to a system and a method for assisting in attenuation correction of gated PET data of a moving object (). In the system, an evaluation unit () is configured to (i) receive a CT image of the object () and to segment the CT image into a plurality of CT sub-images, each CT sub-image correspond to an axial segment of an imaged volume, (ii) to determine for each CT sub-image a gate including PET data having a greatest correspondence with the CT sub-image, (iii) to construct, for each CT sub-image, a PET sub-image from the PET data included in the gate determined for the CT sub-image, the PET sub-image substantially corresponding to the same axial segment of the imaged volume as the CT sub-image, and (iv) to combine the PET sub-images to form a PET reference image of the object ().

Attenuation correction of PET data of moving object

The invention relates to a system and a method for evaluating a treatment plan for an external radiation therapy treatment, the treatment plan comprising parameters for controlling an external radiation therapy apparatus during the treatment. The system comprises a database storing historic treatment plans and storing for each historic treatment plan a quality parameter indicative of whether a deviation between a planned dose distribution and a measured dose distribution resulting from an execution of the treatment plan is within an acceptable limit. An evaluation unit determines a threshold value for each of a plurality of treatment plan metrics based on the historic treatment plans and the associated quality parameters. Further, the evaluation unit calculates a value of each of the metrics for the treatment plan and compares the value of each of the metrics with the threshold value determined for the respective metric.

Evaluation of dose accuracy of radiation therapy treatment plans

The invention relates to a registration apparatus () for registering images comprising a unit () for providing a first and a second image of an object, such that an image element of the first image at a respective position has been reconstructed by multiplying projection data values of rays traversing the image element with weights and by backprojecting the weighted projection data values, a unit () for providing a confidence map comprising for different positions in the first image confidence values being indicative of a likelihood that an image feature is caused by a structure of the object, the confidence value being calculated as a sum of a function, which depends on the respective weight, over the rays traversing the respective image element, and a unit () for determining a transformation for registering the first and second image to each other under consideration of the confidence map.

Registration apparatus for registering images

The invention relates to a device for processing CT imaging data, comprising a processing unit, which is configured to receive a plurality of sets of CT imaging data recorded at different imaging positions and at different points in time. Furthermore, the processing device is configured to provide a plurality of auxiliary sets of CT imaging data, each auxiliary set of CT imaging data comprising processed image data allocated to spatial positions inside a respective spatial section of the object space, wherein a given one of the spatial sections contains those spatial positions which are covered by those sets of CT imaging data acquired at a respective one of the imaging positions, and to generate the processed image data for a given spatial position using those of the sets of CT imaging data acquired at the respective one of the imaging positions.

Device and methods for processing computer tomography imaging data

A method generates and uses a correspondence probability map for visualization of two image datasets. The method includes obtaining two image datasets and obtaining an image registration algorithm that includes a correspondence model. The method further includes registering the two image datasets to generate a displacement vector field and generating a correspondence probability map, using the correspondence model, based on the two image datasets. The method further includes using the correspondence probability map to visualize the two image datasets. A computing system () includes a memory device () configured to store instructions, including a visualization module (), and a processor () that executes the instructions, which causes the processor to generate and employ a correspondence probability map for visualization of two image datasets.

Correspondence probability map driven visualization

The present invention relates to a device and method for registration of two images. To increase the accuracy of the registration the device comprises an input unit () for receiving one or more pairs of negative landmarks, which are indicated in the two images, a pair comprising two negative landmarks, one in each image, which structures are not identical and should not be aligned by the registration. Further, a registration unit () is provided for performing a registration of the two images by determining a transformation for transforming at least one of the images for registering it with the other image and determining a spacing measure of the distance between a first landmark in the transformed image and a second landmark in the other image, wherein the transformation is determined such that the spacing measure for a first landmark and a second landmark of at least one pair of negative landmarks is above a first distance threshold, whereby the negative landmarks are taken into account in the registration but are not aligned by the registration.

Device and method for registration of two images

The present invention relates to device and method for correction of a medical breast image. To provide for an improved correction, said device comprises a medical image input () for obtaining a medical breast image of subject's breast potentially showing artificial deformations of the breast, a scan image input () for obtaining a scan image of the same subject's breast showing the breast in a predetermined position of the subject and comprising surface information of the breast, a simulation unit () for generating a simulated medical breast image from the obtained medical breast image, said simulated medical breast image showing the breast in the same predetermined position of the subject as the scan image and representing the breast surface by a surface mesh, wherein said simulation unit () is configured to generate said simulated medical breast image based on a volumetric biomechanical model, and wherein material parameters of the biomechanical model are varied for aligning the biomechanical model with the breast surface extracted from the scan image, and a correction unit () for determining corrections for correcting the simulated medical breast image for said artificial deformations by use of the scan image by applying a surface matching between said surface mesh and said scan image and for applying the determined corrections to the obtained medical breast image to obtain a corrected medical breast image.

Device, imaging system and method for correction of a medical breast image

An image registration apparatus () includes an image quality driven image registration determiner () that determines an image quality driven image registration for a set of images to register based on a non-rigid registration (), which includes an optimization of an image similarity term and a regularization term, and a registration steering factor, and a registration component () that registers the set of images using the image quality driven image registration. A method determining an image quality driven image registration for a set of images to register based on a non-rigid registration, which includes an optimization of an image similarity term and a regularization term, and a registration steering factor, and registering the set of images using the fidelity driven image registration, generating a set of registered images.

Image quality driven non-rigid image registration

A method includes obtaining projection data from a scan of a moving structure of interest. The method further includes reconstructing the projection data, generating first image data. The method further includes identifying a sub-set of the projection. The method further includes reconstructing the sub-set projection data, generating second image data. The method further includes identifying a region in which the moving structure of interest is located based on the first image data. The method further includes identifying a location of the moving structure of interest in the identified region based on the second image data.

Segmentation of moving structure in image data

A method includes determining a change in a volume of a tissue of interest located in at least two data sets between the at least two data sets. The at least two image data sets include a first image data set acquired at a first time and a second image data set acquired at a second time, and the first and second times are different. The method includes generating a rendering which includes a region in which the tissue of interest is located and indicia that indicates a magnitude of the change across the region. The region is superimposed over the rendering, which is generated based on at least one of the at least two image data sets, and linked to a corresponding image respectively in the at least two image data sets including voxels representing tissue of interest. The method includes visually presenting the rendering in a graphical user interface.

Computer-aided identification of a tissue of interest

The invention relates to a method and an image processing device () for the registration of two images (I, I) that may for example be provided by a CT scanner () and/or an MRI scanner (). According to one embodiment of the invention, the images are first globally registered (GR) with a given registration algorithm using a first parameter vector (p). A user may then select a region of interest ROI, and a plurality of local registrations (LR, . . . LRs, . . . LRn) are calculated for this ROI using the same registration algorithm but different parameter vectors (p, p, . . . p). The results of the local registrations (LR, . . . LRs, . . . LRn) are displayed and the user can select the best local registration(s). In a final step, the selected local registration(s) (LRs) and the global registration (GR) may be merged. Additionally or alternatively, a parameter vector for a local registration in the ROI may be determined by an automatic analysis of the ROI.

Registration of medical images

A method for reformatting image data includes obtaining volumetric image data indicative of an anatomical structure of interest, identifying a surface of interest of the anatomical structure of interest in the volumetric image data, identifying a thickness for a sub-volume of interest of the volumetric image data, shaping the sub-volume of interest such that at least one of its sides follows the surface of interest, and generating, via a processor, a maximum intensity projection (MIP) or direct volume rendering (DVR) based on the identified surface of interest and the shaped sub-volume of interest.

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Hamburg, Germany

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