Siemens Medical Solutions Usa, Inc.

Umut Akdemir

Arun Krishnan

Kazunori Okada

Visvanathan Ramesh

Maneesh Kumar Singh

By testing for nodule segmentation errors based on the scan data, juxtapleural cases are identified. Once identified, the scan data or subsequent estimation may be altered to account for adjacent rib, tissue, vessel or other structure effecting segmentation. One alteration is to shape a filter as a function of the scan data. For example, an originally estimated ellipsoid for the nodule segmentation defines the filter. The filter is used to identify the undesired information, and masking removes the undesired information for subsequent estimation of the nodule segmentation. Another possible alteration biases the subsequent estimation away from the incorrect information, such as the rib, tissue or vessel information influencing the original estimation. For example, a negative prior or probability is assigned to data corresponding to the originally estimated segmentation for the subsequent estimation.

Refined segmentation of nodules for computer assisted diagnosis

A method for segmenting a digitized image includes providing a digitized volumetric image comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a domain of points in an N-dimensional space, identifying a target structure in said image, forming a window about said target structure whose size is a function of the target scale, and performing a joint space-intensity-likelihood ratio test at each point within said window to determine whether each said point is within said target structure.

Growing community of inventors

Hamilton, NJ, United States of America

Umut Akdemir