BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the field of medical imaging and diagnosis and more particularly to video clip selection for use in medical imaging and diagnosis.

Description of the Related Art

Medical imaging refers to the process of creating a visual representation of an interior portion of a mammalian body for the purpose of clinical analysis and medical intervention. Medical imaging seeks to reveal internal structures hidden by the exterior of the body so as to facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Medical imaging incorporates several different modalities for image acquisition. Common modalities include radiological devices such as X-ray radiography including computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MM), medical ultrasonography or ultrasound, endoscopy, elastography, tactile imaging, thermography, medical photography and nuclear medicine functional imaging techniques as positron emission tomography (PET) and Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).

Depending upon the desired use of the imagery for the purpose of a medical diagnosis or the targeting of specific tissue or a particular organ or portion of an organ, different modalities for different imagery may be preferred.

Medical imaging of a target area of the body may be achieved from many different views. Strictly speaking, in so far as medical imagery may be two-dimensional in nature, the angle and approach of the imaging device will result in a different perspective view of the target area. As in the case of the modality of medical imaging, a particular view of the target area presented in a medical image may be preferred depending upon the desired use of the imagery for the purpose of a medical diagnosis or the targeting of specific tissue or a particular organ or portion thereof.

Finally, medical imaging of a target area of the body may vary in quality. That is to say, depending upon the operator—usually a technician and not the physician ultimately producing a diagnosis based upon the imagery—the clarity and focal point of a medical image may vary. In some instances, an attempted view of a target organ may be incomplete omitting key features of the target organ from the view due to an improper placement of the imaging sensor. In other instances, external factors such as the anatomical features of the body may inhibit clarity of key features of the target organ despite proper placement of the imaging sensor.

The traditional workflow for medical imaging begins with the use of the imaging modality by a technician upon the patient in order to acquire a set of imagery. The imagery may be still imagery or video clip imagery depending upon the modality. Generally, the technician enjoys an awareness of the ultimate purpose of the imagery so as to diagnose a particular disease or dysfunction of a target organ. Once acquired, the set of imagery is stored in a centralized repository, typically referred to as a “PACS” or “Picture Archival Communications System” and a report, either digital or written, is prepared for review by the physician. The physician then retrieves at a later time the set of imagery and the report and conducts an analysis of the imagery. The analysis generally requires the physician to select the most appropriate images in the set of imagery of the correct views and quality.

This process can be quite tedious—especially given the need for the physician not only to select the correct images of the correct views and quality, but also to efficiently arrange on the display screen the correct images so as to facilitate a diagnosis through the concurrent review of multiple different images of interest. To the extent that the requisite quality of an image does not exist in the set of imagery, but is required, or to the extent that the requisite view of an image does not exist in the set of imagery, the physician must then direct the patient to return for an additional appointment for the technician to re-acquire the missing imagery. So much reflects an enormous waste of resources of the patient, health care facility and physician.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Aspects of embodiments of the invention summarized herein address the foregoing deficiencies and provide a novel and non-obvious method, data processing system and computer program product for clip selection for medical imaging. A method of the invention includes receiving through an interface to a medical imaging device, a selection of a diagnostic procedure and a target portion of a mammalian body. Thereafter, the medical imaging device acquires a multiplicity of video clip imagery of the target portion and stores the video clip imagery in an image store. Each video clip of the video clip imagery is then image processed to determine a view and a quality of each video clip and a rule is retrieved from a rules base corresponding to the selected diagnostic procedure and target portion. In this regard, the rule specifies a requisite view and quality of the video clip imagery so as to achieve a particular measurement necessary in performing the diagnostic procedure. Finally, the retrieved rule is applied to the video clip imagery as a filter to produce a subset of video clip imagery satisfying the specified requisite view and quality and the subset of video clip imagery is stored in the image store.

In one aspect of the embodiment, on the condition that a video clip satisfying the specified requisite view and quality in the video clip imagery is determined upon the application of the retrieved rule not to exist in the video clip imagery, an alert is generated through the interface of the medical imaging device. In another aspect of the embodiment, the image processing of each video clip includes submitting each video clip to a neural network trained to generate output indicating a recognized view in a submitted video clip at a specified level of confidence, or in the alternative, submitting each video clip to a content based image retrieval system adapted to compare a submitted video clip to a data store of known images of particular views so as to indicate a recognized view in the submitted video clip.

In yet another aspect of the embodiment, the image processing of each video clip further includes computationally computing a generalized degree of quality of a submitted image based upon the specified level of confidence produced in the output of the neural network. Finally, in even yet another aspect of the embodiment, the rule additionally specifies a requisite presence of a landmark feature in the view. In this way, the image processing of each video clip includes submitting each video clip to a neural network trained to generate output indicating a recognized landmark feature in a submitted video clip at a specified level of confidence, such that during application of the retrieved rule, an absence of the landmark feature correlates to poor quality of the video clip, but a presence of the landmark feature correlates to good quality of the video clip.

In another embodiment of the invention, a medical imaging data processing system is configured for clip selection. The system includes a host computing system that includes one or more computers, each with memory and at least one processor. A diagnostic imaging computer program executes in the memory of the host computing system and provides control instructions to a communicatively coupled medical imaging device. The program additionally provides an interface to the medical imaging device.

Importantly, the program yet further includes computer program instructions enabled during execution to perform a method of clip selection for medical imaging. The method includes receiving through an interface to a medical imaging device, a selection of a diagnostic procedure and a target portion of a mammalian body. Thereafter, the medical imaging device acquires a multiplicity of video clip imagery of the target portion and stores the video clip imagery in an image store. Each video clip of the video clip imagery is then image processed to determine a view and a quality of each video clip and a rule is retrieved from a rules base corresponding to the selected diagnostic procedure and target portion. In this regard, the rule specifies a requisite view and quality of the video clip imagery. Finally, the retrieved rule is applied to the video clip imagery as a filter to produce a subset of video clip imagery satisfying the specified requisite view and quality and the subset of video clip imagery is stored in the image store.

Additional aspects of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The aspects of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.

