Medical image processing apparatus, medical image processing method and computer-readable storage medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12307659-B2
Application number	US-202117460832-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 30, 2021
Priority date	Mar 11, 2019
Publication date	May 20, 2025
Grant date	May 20, 2025

Abstract

A medical image processing apparatus includes: an obtaining unit configured to obtain a first image that is a medical image of a predetermined site of a subject; an image quality improving unit configured to generate, from the first image, a second image in which image quality is improved compared to the first image, using an image quality improving engine including a machine learning engine; and a display controlling unit configured to cause a composite image obtained by combining the first image and the second image according to a ratio obtained using information relating to at least a partial region in at least one of the first image and the second image to be displayed on a display unit.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A medical image processing apparatus comprising one of (a) one or more processors connected to one or more memories storing a program including instructions executed by the one or more processors or (b) circuitry, configured to function to:
obtain a first image that is a medical image of a predetermined site of a subject;
generate, from the first image, a second image in which image quality is improved compared to the first image, using an image quality improving engine including a machine learning engine; and
cause a composite image obtained by combining pixel value of the first image and pixel value of the second image for pixels corresponding to each other in the first image and the second image according to a first ratio obtained using information relating to at least a partial region in at least one of the first image and the second image to be displayed on a display,
wherein the image quality improving engine includes a machine learning engine obtained using training data in which noise of a magnitude corresponding to a pixel value of at least a partial region of a medical image is added to the at least partial region.

2. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the first ratio for combining the first image and the second image is obtained by using a pixel value in the at least partial region as the information.

3. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the first ratio for combining the first image and the second image is obtained by using a differential value between pixel values in at least partial regions corresponding to each other in the first image and the second image as the information.

4. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the first ratio for combining the first image and the second image is configured to be changeable in accordance with an instruction from an examiner.

5. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the first ratio for combining the first image and the second image is determined based on the information by using a machine learning engine obtained by learning using training data in which a medical image is adopted as input data, and information relating to a second ratio for combining the medical image and a medical image obtained by subjecting the medical image to image quality improving is adopted as correct answer data.

6. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the image quality improving engine includes a machine learning engine obtained using training data including, as an image pair, a plurality of medical images obtained by adding noises of different patterns from each other to a medical image obtained by averaging processing.

7. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the one of (a) or (b) is further configured to function to:
specify a partial depth range in a depth range of the predetermined site in three-dimensional medical image data of the predetermined site in accordance with an instruction from an examiner,
wherein:
a front image corresponding to the specified partial depth range as the first image is obtained; and
the image quality improving engine includes a machine learning engine obtained using training data that includes a plurality of front images corresponding to a plurality of depth ranges of a predetermined site of a subject.

8. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 7 , wherein:
the image quality improving engine includes a machine learning engine obtained using training data including the plurality of front images to which noise of different magnitude is added with respect to each of at least two depth ranges among the plurality of depth ranges.

9. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 8 , wherein the one of (a) or (b) is further configured to function as:
generate a wide-angle image using a plurality of the second images obtained from a plurality of the first images, the plurality of the first images being obtained by imaging different positions of the predetermined site in a direction that intersects with a depth direction of the predetermined site so that partial regions of a plurality of front images that are adjacent to each other which correspond to the specified partial depth range overlap.

10. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the image quality improving engine including a machine learning engine obtained by learning a plurality of front images corresponding to a plurality of depth ranges of a predetermined site of a subject as training data;
a plurality of front images corresponding to a plurality of depth range are obtained as the first images, the plurality of front images being obtained using at least a part of three-dimensional medical image data of a predetermined site of a subject; and
a plurality of images in which image quality is improved compared to the first images are generated from the first image by using the image quality improving engine as the second image.

11. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the image quality improving engine includes a machine learning engine obtained using training data including an image obtained by OCTA (optical coherence tomography angiography) imaging performed by an OCT (optical coherence tomography) imaging apparatus with higher performance than an OCT imaging apparatus used for OCTA imaging of the first image, or an image obtained by an OCTA imaging step that includes a greater number of steps than an OCTA imaging step used for obtaining the first image.

12. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the second image is generated by dividing the first image into a plurality of two-dimensional images and inputting the plurality of two-dimensional images into the image quality improving engine, and integrating a plurality of output images from the image quality improving engine.

13. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein:
the image quality improving engine includes a machine learning engine obtained using training data including a plurality of medical images having a corresponding positional relationship to each other as an image pair; and
the first image is divided into the plurality of two-dimensional images with an image size corresponding to an image size of the image pair and the plurality of two-dimensional images are input to the image quality improving engine.

14. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 12 , wherein:
the image quality improving engine includes a machine learning engine obtained using training data that includes images of a plurality of partial regions set so that, with respect to a region including a medical image and an outer periphery of the medical image, parts of partial regions that are adjacent overlap with each other.

15. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the image quality improving engine includes a machine learning engine obtained using training data that includes a medical image obtained by averaging processing.

16. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the display is controlled to switch one of a display of an analysis result of the first image and a display of an analysis result of the composite image to the other in accordance with an instruction of an examiner.

17. The medical image processing apparatus according to claim 1 , wherei

Assignees

• Canon Kk

Inventors

• Iwase Yoshihiko
• Yamazoe Manabu
• Uchida Hiroki
• Tomita Ritsuya

Classifications

• G06T5/60

  using machine learning, e.g. neural networks · CPC title

• G06T2207/30168

  Image quality inspection · CPC title

• G06T2207/30004

  Biomedical image processing · CPC title

• G06T2207/20216

  Image averaging · CPC title

• G06T2207/20084

  Artificial neural networks [ANN] · CPC title