A Novel Method for Determining Image Similarity

描述(由申请人提供)：计算机辅助诊断(CADx)方案正在开发中，以帮助放射科医生区分良恶性病变。一种方法是从已知病理的病例库中检索与相关图像相似的病变。这种方法的困难在于确定文库中哪些病变与未知病例相似。在目前的方法中，召回的病变并不总是看起来与未知病例相似。我们建议开发一种新的方法，基于特征值与总体平均值的不同。也就是说，病变最不寻常的特征是突出的视觉特征，应该与之匹配才能找到类似的病变。我们的假设是，这种确定相似性的新方法将产生一组与未知病变更相似的病变，而不是使用现有方法生成的集合。具体地说，我们将：1.组装一个具有聚集钙化的图像数据库。2.提出了基于平均特征值差异的相似度方法；3.在读者研究中评价了该方法的性能，并与现有的相似度方法进行比较。如果我们成功了，我们将提高CADx系统的实用性，在该系统中，类似的图像被用来帮助放射科医生区分良恶性病变。这种类型的系统有可能减少良性病变的活检次数，并提高成像方式的灵敏度。减少“不必要的”活组织检查的数量将降低成本，并减少对患者的身体和精神创伤。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) schemes are being developed to help radiologists distinguish benign from malignant lesions. 1 approach is to recall from a library of cases with known pathology, lesions that are similar to the image in question. The difficulty of this approach is determining which lesions from the library are similar to the unknown case. In current approaches, the recalled lesions do not always look similar to the unknown case. We propose to develop a new method based on how feature values differ from the mean value of the population. That is, the most unusual features of a lesion are the prominent visual features and should be matched to find a similar lesion. Our hypothesis is that this new method of determining similarity will produce a set of lesions that are more similar to an unknown lesion than sets produced using existing methods. Specifically, we will: 1. Assemble a database of images with clustered calcifications. 2. Develop the similarity method based on difference from the mean feature value; and 3. Evaluate the performance of the method in a reader study against existing similarity methods. If we are successful, we will have improved the utility of CADx systems in which similar images are used to assist radiologists in distinguishing benign from malignant lesions. This type of system has the potential to reduce the number of biopsies of benign lesions and improve the sensitivity of the imaging modality. A reduction in the number of "unnecessary" biopsies will reduce cost, and physical and mental trauma to patients.