Rules-based processing and presentation of medical images based on image plane
View Patent ↗Systems and methods that allow transfer and display rules to be defined based on one or more of several attributes, such as a particular user, site, device, and/or image/series characteristic, as well as whether individual images and/or image series are classified as thin slices and/or based on other characteristics, and applied to medical images in order to determine which images and/or image data are analyzed, downloaded, viewed, stored, rendered, processed, and/or any number of other actions that might be performed with respect to medical image data. The system and methods may include image analysis, image rendering, image transformation, image enhancement, and/or other aspects to enable efficient and customized review of medical images.
1. A system configured to analyze and display medical images, the system comprising:
a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith; and one or more processors configured to execute the program instructions to cause the one or more processors to:
access a series of medical images;
analyze the series of medical images to determine an image plane of the series of medical images;
access a user-defined rule indicating an association between the image plane and a user-defined display preference; and
apply the rule to the series of medical images to cause display of the series of medical images according to the user-defined display preference, wherein applying the rule to the series of medical images includes rendering the series of medical images according to a user-defined desired slice thickness associated with the image plane.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user-defined display preference includes at least one of:
an image rendering process, an image slice thickness, an image slice increment, a field of view, a window, a level, or a color setting.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein image plane is derived from a DICOM header file.
4. The system of claim 3 , the one or more processors configured to analyze the series of medical images to further determine at least one of:
an image series view, a patient's age, a medical history, a risk factor, a tissue characteristic, or a modality.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the program instructions to further cause the one or more processors to:
identify a previously displayed series of medical images having the same image plane as the series of medical images;
determine one or more display parameters associated with display of the previously displayed series of medical images; and
designating the one or more display parameters as the user-defined display preference.
6. The system of claim 5 , wherein identifying a previously displayed series of medical images comprises:
determining that the previously displayed series of medical images was previously displayed to a same user that the series of medical images are to be displayed to.
7. A computer-implemented method of analyzing and displaying medical images, the method comprising: by one or more processors executing program instructions:
accessing a series of medical images;
analyzing the series of medical images to determine an image plane of the series of medical images;
accessing a user-defined rule indicating an association between the image plane and a user-defined display preference; and
applying the rule to the series of medical images to cause display of the series of medical images according to the user-defined display preference, wherein applying the rule to the series of medical images includes rendering the series of medical images according to a user-defined desired slice thickness associated with the image plane.
8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the user-defined display preference includes at least one of:
an image rendering process, an image slice thickness, an image slice increment, a field of view, a window, a level, or a color setting.
9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the image plane is derived from a DICOM header file.
10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , the method further including analyzing the series of medical images to determine at least one of:
an image series view, a patient's age, a medical history, a risk factor, a tissue characteristic, or a modality.
11. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein applying the rule to the series of medical images comprises: by the one or more processors executing program instructions:
rendering the series of medical images according to a user-defined rule associated with the image plane.
12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11 , wherein the rule indicates a desired slice thickness.
13. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising: by the one or more processors executing program instructions:
identify a previously displayed series of medical images having a same image plane as the series of medical images;
determine one or more display parameters associated with display of the previously displayed series of medical images; and
designating the one or more display parameters as the user-defined display preference.
14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13 , wherein identifying a previously displayed series of medical images comprises:
by the one or more processors executing program instructions:
determining that the previously displayed series of medical images was previously displayed to a same user that the series of medical images are to be displayed to.
15. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by one or more processors to cause the one or more processors to:
access a series of medical images;
analyze the series of medical images to determine an image plane of the series of medical images;
access a user-defined rule indicating an association between the image plane and a user-defined display preference; and
apply the rule to the series of medical images to cause display of the series of medical images according to the user-defined display preference, wherein applying the rule to the series of medical images includes rendering the series of medical images according to a user-defined desired slice thickness associated with the image plane.
16. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the program instructions are executable by one or more processors to further cause the one or more processors to:
identify a previously displayed series of medical images having a same image plane as the series of medical images;
determine one or more display parameters associated with display of the previously displayed series of medical images; and
designating the one or more display parameters as the user-defined display preference.