Technologies

Problem or Unmet Need:
Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) as well as other radiological techniques are widely used for medical diagnostics. In many cases it is desirable to quantify and assess content of acquired images in order to detect pathological changes occurring in one side of the scanned region by comparing it to other symmetrical part (which is presumably healthy).This technique, based on analysis of symmetry of the images, found its application, among other neurological conditions, diagnosis of cerebral vasospasm conditions (conditions which might lead to a stroke). Usually, in this case, a trained human expert qualitatively evaluates the symmetry of perfusion-weighted CT or MRI images in order to find problems with blood flow in on of the brain hemispheres. But there is an urgent need for developing a system for quantitative assessment of the pathological content in order to assist a human observer with correct diagnosis.
The authors developed a method and related software for analyzing images such as computerized tomography images obtained from a standard perfusion CT software package. Perfusion-weighted imaging is analyzed and quantified by detecting side-to-side asymmetry of cerebral blood flow, cerebral blood volume and time to peak maps. The method uses mathematical analysis and advanced statistical techniques to generate a map of relative meaningful differences between symmetrical parts of the image and quantitatively represent side-to-side asymmetry.