NASA Technology May Aid Interpretation Of Medical Imagery

"The use of this computer-based technology could minimize human error
that occurs when evaluating radiologic films and might allow for
earlier detection of abnormalities within the tissues being imaged,"
said Dr. Thomas Rutherford, director of Gynecologic Oncology at Yale
University in New Haven, Conn.

The Food and Drug Administration recently cleared the system for
trained professionals to process images. These images can be used in
radiologists' reports and communications, but the processed images
should not be used for primary diagnosis.

MED-SEG is a software device that receives medical images and data
from various medical imaging sources. Images and data can be stored,
communicated, processed and displayed within the system or across
computer networks at distributed locations.

The core of Bartron's MED-SEG system is a computer algorithm, the
Hierarchical Segmentation Software, developed at NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., by computer engineer James C.
Tilton. He began working on his algorithm more than 25 years ago.

His goal was to advance a totally new approach for analyzing digital
images, which are made up of thousands of pixels. Like a single piece
of a jigsaw puzzle, a pixel often does not provide enough information
about where it fits in the overall scene. To overcome the deficiency,
Tilton focused on an approach called image segmentation, which
organizes and groups an image's pixels together at different levels
of detail. Tilton's approach to image segmentation is different than
others. It finds region objects, and also groups spatially separated
region objects together into region classes.

For example, an Earth satellite image may contain several lakes of
different depths. Deep lakes appear dark blue, and shallow lakes are
a lighter shade of blue. The software first finds each individual
lake; then it groups together all shallow lakes into one class and
the deeper lakes into another. Because lakes are more similar than
they are to vegetation, roads, buildings, and other objects, the
software groups all lakes together, regardless of their varying
colors. As a result, the software allows the user to distinguish
important features in the scene accurately and quickly.

Bartron learned of the software through Goddard's Innovative
Partnerships Program Office. In 2003 the company licensed the
patented technology to create a system that would differentiate
hard-to-see details in complex medical images.

"Trained professionals can use the MED-SEG system to separate
two-dimensional images into digitally related sections or regions
that, after colorization, can be individually labeled by the user,"
explained Fitz Walker, president and CEO of Bartron Medical Imaging.

Dr. Molly Brewer, a professor with the Division of Gynecologic
Oncology at the University of Connecticut Health Center in
Farmington, would like to do clinical trials with the MED-SEG system
to improve mammography as a diagnostic tool for detecting breast cancer.

"One problem with mammograms is they often give a false negative for
detecting abnormalities in women's breasts," Brewer said. "Women who
either have high breast density or a strong family history of breast
cancer are often sent for MRIs, which are costly, very uncomfortable
and have a high false positive rate resulting in many unnecessary
biopsies. The MED-SEG processes the image allowing a doctor to see a
lot more detail in a more quantitative way. This new software could
save patients a lot of money by reducing the number of costly and
unnecessary tests."

For more information about Goddard's Innovative Partnerships Program
Office, visit:

http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov

For more information about NASA partnerships, innovation and
commercial space opportunities, visit:

http://go.usa.gov/aDs

For images and video of MED-SEG and NASA's software, visit:

http://go.usa.gov/aWX

Source: NASA

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