IMAGE READING DIFFICULTY EVALUATION METHOD AND PROGRAM

To support image reading when diagnosing a lesion part from a medical image.SOLUTION: A control unit detects a determination object region r52 being a region where a shadow c1 similar to a shadow a1 exists adjacently to the shadow a1 and determination on whether the shadow c1 belongs to the shadow a1 is required in a medical image V1 of a disease case D1 and detects the number of types of adjacent shadows existing in an adjacent region h1 of the determination object region r52 as 1 (one of the shadow a1). The control unit detects a determination object region r23 in a medical image V2 of a disease case D2 and detects the number of types of adjacent shadows existing in an adjacent region h2 of the determination object region r23 as 2 (two of the shadows a1, b1). When a specified value is 2 in a case where the number of types of the adjacent shadows equal to or greater than the specified value is determined as the high image reading difficulty and the number less than the specified value is determined as the low image reading difficulty, the control unit evaluates the image reading difficulty of the medical image V2 as high and evaluates the image reading difficulty of the medical image V1 as low.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2 【課題】医用画像から病変部を診断する際の読影を支援する。【解決手段】症例Ｄ１の医用画像Ｖ１において、制御部は、陰影ａ１に隣接して陰影ａ１に類似する陰影ｃ１が存在する領域であり、陰影ｃ１が陰影ａ１に属するかの判定を要する判定対象領域ｒ５２を検出し、また判定対象領域ｒ５２の隣接領域ｈ１に存在する隣接陰影の種類の数を１（陰影ａ１の１つ）と検出する。制御部は、症例Ｄ２の医用画像Ｖ２において、判定対象領域ｒ２３を検出し、判定対象領域ｒ２３の隣接領域ｈ２に存在する隣接陰影の種類の数を２（陰影ａ１、ｂ１の２つ）と検出する。隣接陰影の種類の数が規定値以上を読影難易度は高く、規定値未満を読影難易度は低いとして、規定値を２とした場合、制御部は、医用画像Ｖ２の読影難易度は高く、医用画像Ｖ１の読影難易度は低いものと評価する。【選択図】図２