Medical image diagnosis system and control method thereof

1 . A medical image diagnosis system, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

set values of an image quality indicator selected by a user regarding multiple types of the image quality indicator to display a medical image as an anchor, and generate a thumbnail image of the medical image based on the anchor as a first thumbnail image;

cause a display to display the first thumbnail image;

generate a plurality of thumbnail images as second thumbnail images by respectively increasing or decreasing the multiple types of the image quality indicator from the anchor regarding the medical image;

cause the display to display the plurality of second thumbnail images;

allow the user to select one of the first thumbnail image and the plurality of second thumbnail images, and calculate a new image quality indicator adjusted with a variable step width based on the selected one of the first thumbnail image and the plurality of the second thumbnail images;

generate a new first thumbnail image by using the values of the image quality indicators corresponding to the selected one of the first thumbnail image and the plurality of the second thumbnail images selected by the user as a new anchor, display the new first thumbnail image, generate a plurality of new second thumbnail images based on the values of the new image quality indicator, and display the plurality of new second thumbnail images;

generate a composed image based on the image quality indicator composed by respectively increasing or decreasing the multiple types of the image quality indicator from the anchor as one of the plurality of second thumbnail images; and

display the composed image as one of the plurality of second thumbnail images on the display; and

buttons configured to change the image quality indicator.

2 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 1 , wherein:

the buttons include an increasing button for increasing the image quality indicator and a decreasing button for decreasing the image quality indicator; and

the processing circuitry is further configured to increase or decrease the new image quality indicator based on a user operation on the increase button or the decrease button.

3 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 1 , wherein the calculation of the new image quality indicator is optimized by a probabilistic inference using Bayes' theorem, and the optimized calculation is performed by maximizing an acquisition function.

4 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 3 , wherein the probabilistic inference using Bayes' theorem is performed by a prior distribution model following a Gaussian process.

5 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

calculate a plurality of parameters from the values of the image quality indicator;

perform image processing or signal processing based on the calculated plurality of parameters; and

generate the first thumbnail image and the plurality of second thumbnail images, respectively.

6 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 5 , wherein the image processing or the signal processing is any one of multiresolution decomposition processing, nonlinear anisotropic diffusion filter, linear spatial filter, median filter, input/output curve processing, and gain adjustment processing.

7 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 1 , wherein the medical image is an image captured by an ultrasonic diagnosis system.

8 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 7 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

calculate a plurality of parameters from the values of the image quality indicator,

perform ultrasonic transmission/reception under condition of the calculated plurality of parameters; and

generate the first thumbnail image and the second thumbnail image, respectively.

9 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 8 , wherein the condition of the ultrasonic transmission/reception is any one of a transmission waveform, a reception center frequency, a reception frequency band, a reception aperture, and a sound velocity.

10 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 7 , wherein, in the ultrasonic diagnosis system, the image quality indicator can be optimized for each depth of a subject.

11 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 7 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to calculate the new image quality indicator based upon a change indicated by operation of one of the buttons.

12 . The medical image diagnosis system according to claim 1 , wherein the multiple types of the image quality indicator include any one of a noise reduction, an edge enhancement, a coherency enhancement, an edge detectability, a brightness, a contrast, a gain, a high brightness enhancement, and a resolution.

13 . The medical image diagnosis system of claim 1 , wherein a number of the second thumbnail images is greater than a number of types of the image quality indicator.

14 . A medical image diagnosis system, comprising:

processing circuitry configured to:

set values of an image quality indicator selected by a user regarding multiple types of the image quality indicator to display a medical image as an anchor, and generate a thumbnail image of the medical image based on the anchor as a first thumbnail image;

cause a display to display the first thumbnail image;

generate a plurality of thumbnail images as second thumbnail images by respectively increasing or decreasing the multiple types of the image quality indicator from the anchor regarding the medical image;

cause the display to display the plurality of second thumbnail images;

allow the user to select one of the first thumbnail image and the plurality of second thumbnail images, and calculate a new image quality indicator adjusted with a variable step width based on the selected one of the first thumbnail image and the plurality of the second thumbnail images; and

generate a new first thumbnail image by using the values of the image quality indicators corresponding to the selected one of the first thumbnail image and the plurality of the second thumbnail images selected by the user as a new anchor, display the new first thumbnail image, generate a plurality of new second thumbnail images based on the values of the new image quality indicator, and display the plurality of new second thumbnail images,

wherein the calculation of the new image quality indicator depends on a probability selecting the one of the first thumbnail image and the plurality of second thumbnail images using a Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model or a Thurstone-Mosteller model.

15 . A control method of a medical image diagnosis system, comprising:

setting values of image quality indicator selected by a user regarding multiple types of the image quality indicator to display a medical image as an anchor, and generates a thumbnail image of the medical image based on the anchor as a first thumbnail image;

causing the display to display the first thumbnail image;

generating a plurality of thumbnail images as second thumbnail images by respectively increasing or decreasing the multiple types of the image quality indicator from the anchor regarding the medical image;

causing the display to display the plurality of second thumbnail images;

allowing the user to select one of the first thumbnail image and the plurality of second thumbnail images, and calculating a new image quality indicator adjusted with a variable step width based on the selected one of the first thumbnail image or the plurality of the second thumbnail images;

generating a new first thumbnail image by using the values of the image quality indicator corresponding to selected the one of the first thumbnail image and the second thumbnail image selected by the user as a new anchor, causing the display to display a new first thumbnail image, generating a plurality of new second thumbnail images based on the values of the new image quality indicator, and causing the display to display the plurality of new second thumbnail images;

generating a composed image based on the image quality indicator composed by respectively increasing or decreasing the multiple types of the image quality indicator from the anchor as one of the plurality of second thumbnail images;

displaying the composed image as one of the plurality of second thumbnail images on the display; and

changing the image quality indicator by operating buttons for changing the image quality indicator.