Reduced Image Reading Time and Improved Patient Flow in Automated Breast Ultrasound Using Enchanced, Whole Breast Navigator Overview Images

摘要

A method and system acquiring, processing and displaying breast ultrasound images in a way that makes breast ultrasound screening more practical and thus more widely used, and reduces missing cancers in screening and diagnosis, using automated scanning of chestwardly compressed breasts with ultrasound. Enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview images are generated from scanning breasts with ultrasound that emphasize abnormalities in the breast while excluding obscuring influences of non-breast structures, particularly those external to the breast such as ribs and chest wall, and differentiating between likely malignant and likely benign abnormalities and otherwise enhancing the navigator overview image and other images, to thereby reduce the time to read, screen, or diagnose to practical time limits and also reduce screening or diagnostic errors.

主权项

1. A system for automated ultrasound examination of a patient's breast, comprising:
a breast scanning pod configured to compress the patient's breast chestwardly and scan the compressed breast with ultrasound to acquire a sonographic response; a processor configured to apply computer image processing to the sonographic response to thereby produce an enhanced whole-breast navigator overview image representing a three-dimensional volume from which influences of non-breast tissue included in the sonographic response has been segmented out; the processor being configured to further enhance the enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview image with indications of abnormalities found in the sonographic response; the processor being further configured to still further enhance the enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview image with indications of whether the found abnormalities are likely malignant or likely benign; the processor being yet further configured to boost representations in the enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview image of features related to likely malignant abnormalities; and a computerized display configured to display the enhanced, whole-breast navigator overview image in association with selected other images generated from the sonographic response.