Computer-aided diagnosis workstation and database system for chest diagnosis based on multihelical CT images

Lung cancer is the most common cause, accounting for about 20% of all cancer deaths for males in Japan. Myocardial infarction is also known as a most fearful adult disease. Recently, multi-helical CT scanner advanced remarkably at the speed at which the chest CT images were acquired for screening examination. This screening examination requires a considerable number of images to be read. It is this time-consuming step that makes the use of multi-helical CT for mass screening. To overcome this problem, our group has developed a computer-aided diagnosis algorithm to automatically detect suspicious regions of lung cancer and coronary calcifications in chest CT images, so far. And in this time, our group has developed a newly computer-aided diagnosis workstation and database. These consist in three. First, it is an image processing system to automatically detect suspicious bronchial regions, pulmonary artery regions, plumonary vein regions and myocardial infarction regions at high speed. Second, they are two 1600 x 1200 matrix black and white liquid crystal monitor. Third, it is a terminal of image storage. These are connected mutually on the network. This makes it much easier to read images, since the 3D image of suspicious regions and shadow of suspicious regions can be displayed simultaneously on two 1600 x 1200 matrix liquid crystal monitor. The experimental results indicate that a newly computer-aided diagnosis workstation and database system can be effectively used in clinical practice to increase the speed and accuracy of routine diagnosis.