Computer-aided Detection of Liver Tumor Halos in Ultrasound Images

Reference #:

2002-029

Inventors/Contributors

James F. Greenleaf, Ph.D., J. William Charboneau, M.D., Xiaohui Hao, Ph.D., Nicholas J. Hangiandreou, Ph.D.

Description

This invention developed a novel computer-aided method for identification of liver tumor halos. The edge of the halo is either manually traced or semi-automatically traced using snakes. Then the presence of the halo is identified by comparing the verage gray level intensity of the halo region and the average gray level intensity of the outside normal tissue region. It was found that when the tumor edge was traced manually, the tumors with and without halos were separated with 100% specificity and 100% sensitivity. When the tumor edge was detected semi-automatically, halos were detected with a specificity of 93% and a sensitivity of 100%

Patent Status

	U.S. Patent Number 6,984,211 Issued January 10, 2006