A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTOURING A MEDICAL IMAGE AND REVIEWING EXISTING CONTOURS

1 - 26 . (canceled)

27 . A method for contouring a medical image in a contouring system comprising the steps of:

providing at least one medical image to be contoured by a user;

determining that the user has initiated contouring of a structure on the medical image;

the contouring system determining the structure that is being contoured;

in response to the determination of the structure being contoured the system displaying guidance for the contouring of the determined structure;

contouring the determined structure in accordance with the displayed guidance.

28 . A method for reviewing contours on a contoured medical image comprising the steps of:

providing at least one medical image annotated with one or more pre-existing contours;

displaying the at least one medical image annotated with one or more pre-existing contours;

determining that the user has initiated reviewing a pre-existing contour on the medical image;

determine the structure associated with the pre-existing contour being reviewed by the user;

in response to the determination of the structure displaying guidance for the contouring of the determined structure.

29 . A method as claimed in claim 28 , further comprising the step of completing the review of the pre-existing contour or editing the pre-existing contour in accordance with the displayed guidance.

30 . A method as claimed in claim 29 , wherein completing the review of the pre-existing contour comprises providing feedback on the contour.

31 . A method as claimed in claim 30 , wherein the feedback is provided as comments or annotations on the contour.

32 . A method as claimed in claim 27 , further comprising the step of outputting the user-initiated contour.

33 . A method as claimed in claim 27 , wherein the determination that the user has initiated contouring or reviewing of a contour is determined when the user starts to draw or edit a contour of the structure on the at least one medical image.

34 . A method as claimed in claim 28 , wherein the determination that a pre-existing contour is to be edited or reviewed is done using eye-tracking hardware and/or software to identify the location of the users gaze on the at least one medical image.

35 . A method according to claim 27 , wherein the guidance for contouring is at least one of: clinical guidelines for contouring the determined structure or at least one atlas image showing at least one example contour for the determined structure.

36 . A method as claimed in claim 27 , wherein the determination of the structure being reviewed or contoured is made by finding a mapping between the at least one medical image and at least one atlas image; wherein the mapping is done using image registration; wherein the image registration comprises one or more of: deformable registration, affine registration or rigid registration.

37 . A method as claimed in claim 27 , further comprising using Machine Learning to predict the structure being contoured.

38 . A method as claimed in claim 37 , wherein the determination of the structure being reviewed or contoured is made by comparison to contours produced using Machine Learning based auto-contouring.

39 . A method as claimed in claim 27 , wherein the determination of the structure being reviewed or contoured on the medical image is done using eye-tracking hardware and/or software to identify the location of the users gaze on the at least one medical image.

40 . A method as claimed in claim 27 , wherein the contouring of the determined structure by the user is one of manual, semi-automatic or automatic contouring.

41 . A method as claimed in claim 40 , wherein the contouring system determines the structure being contoured or reviewed using a contour name of the structure being contoured; wherein the contour name is provided to a look-up table so the name is related to a standardised naming convention.

42 . A method as claimed in claim 27 , wherein the steps of the method are repeated so that multiple structures in the at least one medical image are contoured.

43 . A method as claimed in claim 28 , wherein the pre-existing contours displayed to the user are either manual contours from a previous contouring session, or automatically produced contours.

44 . A method as claimed in claim 28 , wherein the steps of the method are repeated so that multiple pre-existing contours on the medical image are reviewed.

45 . A method as claimed in claim 27 , wherein the at least one medical image is one a CT scan, an MRI scan, a PET scan, a SPECT scan or an ultrasound scan.

46 . A system for contouring of at least one medical image comprising:

a display for displaying at least one medical image to be contoured by a user;

a processor for determining that the user has initiated contouring of a structure on the medical image;

the processor determining the structure that is being contoured; and

in response to the determination of the structure the system displaying guidance to the user for the contouring of the determined structure; so that the determined structure can be contoured in accordance with the displayed guidance.