CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2013-074225, filed 29 Mar. 2013; the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD

Embodiments described herein relate generally to a medical image processing apparatus.

BACKGROUND

Interventional therapy (endovascular treatment) is performed by the medical imaging technology using an X-ray diagnostic apparatus. For example, the X-ray diagnostic apparatus generates and displays images of the inside of a subject along with the interventional therapy performed by a doctor or the like.

That doctor or the like guides a catheter inserted into the subject to a predetermined site in the subject while referring to blood vessels in an image displayed. In one example of the method of treating an aneurysm, the doctor inserts a guide wire from groin region of a leg or the like. Then, the doctor guides a catheter along the guide wire to the diseased area. The doctor embolizes a predetermined site referring to the image. The embolization is performed by, for example, placing an occlusion material such as a coil or the like in the predetermined site from the tip of the catheter. Incidentally, the site to be embolized is an aneurysm, an inflow blood vessel to an arteriovenous malformation (AVM), an inflow blood vessel to a tumor, or the like.

Blood flow to the site is blocked by this embolization. In the treatment of AVM, by occluding blood vessels flowing into a nidus, blood flow to the nidus is interrupted. Such embolization enables the direction of the blood flow to be optimized. Besides, the aneurysm is treated by placing a coil to coagulate the blood in the aneurysm. In the case of tumor therapy, by occluding blood vessels flowing into the feeding arteries that flow into the tumor, blood flow to the tumor can be shut off.

As described above, a doctor performs the embolization for shutting inflow off to a predetermined site with reference to a medical image. Therefore, it is desirable that the doctor be able to smoothly figure out the inflow blood vessels and the surrounding area thereof. In this respect, there have been proposed technologies for facilitating the recognition of the inflow blood vessel portion in medical images.

However, the feeding arteries to a tumor, the inflow blood vessels to AVM, the outflow blood vessels from the neck or dome of an aneurysm, and the like have a complex shape, and are difficult to be identified. Therefore, it has been difficult to produce a medical image that allows a viewer of the image to smoothly figure out the shape of the blood vessel in a relevant part with the medical image diagnostic apparatus.

