System and Method for Evaluation of Disease Burden

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016100795-A1
Application number	US-201514886835-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 19, 2015
Priority date	Mar 15, 2013
Publication date	Apr 14, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A sensitive method of assessing treatment using molecular and anatomical imaging scans provides automatic tumor identification and quantification within anatomical zones based on treatment criteria. Absolute or comparative measures of tumors in pre- and/or post-scans are thereby isolated from other tissue to accentuate the progress of the treatment when multiple scattered disease lesions are present.

First claim

What we claim is:

1 . A method of assessing treatment of a patient comprising the steps of:
acquiring a scan of a molecular imaging agent uptake of tissue of the patient, the molecular imaging agent uptake identifying diseased tissue; processing the scan using an electronic computer executing a stored program to: (a) receive an input describing at least one of disease type and molecular imaging agent type; (b) process the input to produce a set of anatomical regions of interest based on the input, the anatomical regions of interest representing a subset of a region of the scan; (c) identify multiple disease locations within the anatomical regions based on molecular imaging agent uptake indicated by the scan; provide an output indicating disease progression/regression based on measures of molecular imaging agent uptake within the multiple disease locations isolated from molecular imaging agent uptake outside of the multiple disease locations.

2 . The method of claim 1 further including the step of outputting an assessment of disease heterogeneity based on characterization of the molecular imaging agent uptake of the whole patient.

3 . The method of claim 1 further including the step of outputting measures of molecular imaging agent uptake of individual subsets of the multiple disease locations.

4 . The method of claim 1 further including the step of outputting an assessment of disease burden based on an integrated measure of molecular imaging agent uptake over the whole patient.

5 . The method of claim 2 wherein the measures of molecular imaging agent uptake of subsets are divided in the output according to anatomical categories of disease locations of the subsets.

6 . The method of claim 1 further including a segmentation defining boundaries around disease locations after the identification.

7 . The method of claim 1 further including the step of acquiring a second scan of molecular imaging agent uptake of the tissue of the patient at a later time and repeating steps (a)-(c) for this second scan, and wherein step (d) provides an output indicating cancer progression/regression based on a comparison of measures of molecular imaging agent uptake within the multiple disease locations isolated from molecular imaging agent uptake outside of the multiple disease locations between scans.

8 . The method of claim 7 further including the step of independently registering and matching measures of molecular imaging agent uptake between multiple diseases of the scans.

9 . The method of claim 8 wherein the anatomical regions are those of bone, bone lesions or bone marrow and wherein the independent registration matches bones, bone lesions, or bone marrow between corresponding bones in the scans rotated and shifted independently into alignment with each other.

10 . The method of claim 7 wherein the output includes a graphic display of the tissue showing measures for different disease locations color coded according to response between the scans.

11 . The method of claim 1 wherein the measures are selected from the group of imaging measures consisting of uptake mean, uptake maximum, uptake peak, uptake total, uptake coefficient of variation, lesion volume, lesion linear dimension, and combinations of the above.

12 . The method of claim 1 wherein the scan is a molecular imaging scan and further including the step of acquiring an anatomical scan of the tissue of the patient and processing the anatomical scan and the input to produce the set of anatomical regions of interest.

13 . An apparatus for assessing cancer treatment of a patient comprising:
an electronic computer executing a stored program to: (a) receive a scan of molecular imaging agent uptake of tissue of the patient, the molecular imaging agent identifying disease tissue; (b) receive an input describing at least one of cancer type and molecular imaging agent type; (c) process the input to produce a set of anatomical regions of interest based on the input, the anatomical regions of interest representing a subset of a region of the scan; (d) identify multiple disease locations within the anatomical regions based on molecular imaging agent uptake indicated by the scan; and (e) output an indication of cancer progression/regression based on measures of molecular imaging agent uptake within the multiple disease locations isolated from molecular imaging agent uptake outside of the multiple disease locations.

14 . The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the output provides measures of molecular imaging agent uptake of individual subsets of the multiple disease locations.

15 . The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the measures of molecular imaging agent uptake of subsets are divided in the output according to anatomical categories of disease locations of the subsets.

16 . The apparatus of claim 13 further including a segmentation defining boundaries around the disease locations after the identification.

17 . The apparatus of claim 13 further including repeating steps (a)-(d) for a second scan of the patient at a later time, and wherein the output indicates cancer progression/regression based on a comparison of measures of molecular imaging agent uptake within the multiple disease locations isolated from molecular imaging agent uptake outside of the multiple disease locations between scans.

18 . The apparatus of claim 17 further including independently registering and matching measures of molecular imaging agent uptake between multiple diseases of the scans.

19 . The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the anatomical regions are those of bone, bone lesions, or bone marrow and wherein the independent registration matches at least one of: bone, bone lesions and bone marrow between corresponding bones in the scans rotated and shifted independently into alignment with each other.

20 . The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the output provides a graphic display of the tissue showing measures for different disease locations color coded according to response between the scans.

21 . The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the measures are selected from the group of imaging measures consisting of uptake mean, uptake maximum, uptake peak, uptake total, uptake coefficient of variation, lesion volume, lesion linear dimension, and combinations of the above.

22 . The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the scan is a molecular imaging scan and further including processing an anatomical scan of the patient and the input to produce the set of anatomical regions of interest.

Assignees

• Wisconsin Alumni Res Found

Inventors

• Jeraj Robert
• Liu Glenn

Classifications

• A61B6/461

  Displaying means of special interest · CPC title

• A61B5/4848 Primary

  Monitoring or testing the effects of treatment, e.g. of medication · CPC title

• A61B6/037

  Emission tomography · CPC title

• A61B5/055

  involving electronic [EMR] or nuclear [NMR] magnetic resonance, e.g. magnetic resonance imaging · CPC title

• A61B6/032

  Transmission computed tomography [CT] · CPC title