Methods and systems for breast tomosynthesis

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12288275-B2
Application number	US-202117443939-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 28, 2021
Priority date	Jul 28, 2021
Publication date	Apr 29, 2025
Grant date	Apr 29, 2025

Abstract

Various systems are provided for non-uniform thickness and/or sampling of slabs of the breast to present DBT acquisitions. A method for generating a patient image as a set of slabs representing an imaged object, the method comprising acquiring a tomosynthesis projection, reconstructing a series of slab images, each slab representing a portion of a breast, and a plurality of slabs of non-uniform thickness and/or non-uniform sampling in a 3D reconstructed domain defined by x-, y-, and z-axes.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
acquiring a tomosynthesis projection volume of a breast; and
reconstructing a series of slab images from the tomosynthesis projection volume;
wherein the series of slab images is formed from a plurality of slabs of the tomosynthesis projection volume, wherein at least some of the plurality of slabs are of non-uniform thickness and/or non-uniform sampling in a 3D reconstructed domain defined by x-, y-, and z-axes, wherein two or more slabs of the plurality of slabs are curved, and wherein curves of the two or more slabs are complementary to one another.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a slab thickness and/or sampling of at least one slab is based on imaging system parameters including a thickness of the breast, an average lesion size, a tomosynthesis aperture angle, and/or a paddle type.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein a slab thickness and/or sampling of at least one slab is based on an area of interest, and wherein a detection algorithm determines areas of interest in the breast.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one slab is parallel to an x-y plane with a variable local thickness in relation to the x-y plane.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein a local thickness of the at least one slab is determined based on a location of an area of interest in the breast.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the local thickness of the at least one slab is tailored to include the area of interest and reduce inclusion of regions free of areas of interest.

7. A system for an imaging device; comprising:
a controller with instructions stored on non-transitory memory thereof that when executed cause the controller to:
acquire tomosynthesis projection data;
identify areas of interest in a plurality of slices reconstructed from the tomosynthesis projection data via a reconstruction algorithm;
shape one or more first slabs to capture data in the plurality of slices a threshold distance away from each of the areas of interest; and
shape one or more second slabs to capture data in the plurality of slices within the threshold distance of each of the areas of interest, the threshold distance measured along a three-dimensional axis system including an x-axis, a y-axis, and a z-axis;
wherein at least one of the one or more first slabs or one or more second slabs has a non-uniform thickness, and wherein at least one of the one or more first slabs or one or more second slabs is curved, such that the one or more first slabs and the one or more second slabs include two curved slabs with curves that are complementary to one another.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the instructions further cause the controller to maximize a thickness of one or more third slabs in response to areas of interest not being identified.

9. The system of claim 7 , wherein the instructions further cause the controller to minimize a thickness of the one or more second slabs.

10. The system of claim 7 , wherein the instructions further cause the controller to shape a first slab of the one or more first slabs to include a portion of a first slice of the plurality of slices free of an area of interest, and wherein the instructions further cause the controller to shape a second slab of the one or more second slabs to include a remaining portion of the first slice of the plurality of slices comprising the area of interest.

11. The system of claim 7 , wherein a single slab of the one or more second slabs includes two or more of the areas of interest in response to the two or more of the areas of interest being within the threshold distance of each other.

12. The system of claim 7 , wherein one of the one or more second slabs includes a first area of interest and another of the one or more second slabs includes a second area of interest, and wherein a distance between the first area of interest and the second area of interest is greater than the threshold distance.

13. A system for generating an image from a multi-dimensional image data set, comprising:
a controller with instructions stored on non-transitory memory thereof that when executed cause the controller to:
obtain a volume of image data, the volume of image data including a plurality of slices, each of the plurality of slices separated along a z-axis normal to an x-y plane;
identify areas of interest in the plurality of slices; and
reconstructing a series of slab images by dividing the plurality of slices into a plurality of slabs based on locations of the areas of interest, wherein one or more slabs of the plurality of slabs is curved, wherein each of the areas of interest is arranged in one curved slab of the plurality of slabs, and wherein the one curved slab is curved to be within a threshold distance of each of the areas of interest.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein data from a slice of the plurality of slices comprising an area of interest is divided into a first slab and a second slab of the plurality of slabs, and wherein the first slab comprises data from a portion of the slice the threshold distance away from the area of interest and the second slab comprises data from a portion of the slice within the threshold distance of the area of interest.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the threshold distance is adjustable based on a breast thickness.

16. The system of claim 13 , wherein different slabs of the plurality of slabs comprising different areas of interest are separated by slabs free of areas of interest.

Assignees

• Ge Prec Healthcare Llc

Inventors

• Bismuth Vincent
• Bernard Sylvain
• Patoureaux Fanny
• Popova Yana
• Corsino Espino Jorge
• Mancardi Xavier
• Ravier Mathilde

Classifications

• G06T12/00 Primary

  Tomographic reconstruction from projections · CPC title

• G06T2207/30096

  Tumor; Lesion · CPC title

• G06T2207/30068

  Mammography; Breast · CPC title

• G06T2207/10112

  Digital tomosynthesis [DTS] · CPC title

• A61B6/502

  for diagnosis of breast, i.e. mammography · CPC title