MEDICAL IMAGE ANALYSIS SYSTEM USING N-WAY BELIEF PROPAGATION FOR ANATOMICAL IMAGES SUBJECT TO DEFORMATION AND RELATED METHODS

摘要

A medical image analysis system is for first and second anatomical image data of a same body area and subject to deformation, with the first and second anatomical image data including respective first and second sets of voxels. The medical image analysis system may include a processor cooperating with a memory and configured to generate a plurality of cost arrays, with each cost array based upon probabilities of a subset of voxels of the second anatomical image data matching voxels of the first anatomical image data. The processor may also solve each cost array using three-dimensional, N-way belief propagation to thereby generate a deformation vector array between the first and second anatomical image data, where N is an integer greater than or equal to six.