公开(公告)号：US11443427B2

公开(公告)日：2022-09-13

申请号：US17455677

申请日：2021-11-19

申请人： MErunova Pty Ltd

发明人： Kyle Sheldrick ,  Ashish Diwan

IPC分类号： G06T7/00 ,  G06T7/62 ,  G06T7/11 ,  A61B5/00

摘要： In some embodiments, spinal disc degeneracy is diagnosed according to a decay variance map generated by determining a variance in T2 decay over time within each pixel or pixel subset of an MRI image. A region of interest may be defined as including nucleus pulposus (NP) and annulus fibrosus (AF) areas, and excluding cartilaginous endplate (EP) areas of a disc. A decay variance for a pixel or groups of pixels is calculated by determining ratios between consecutive intensity values of the T2 signal, determining differences between consecutive ratios, and summing the absolute values of the determined differences. Decay variance mapping may be used to diagnose degeneracy in other tissues, such as in joints.