BACKGROUND:  Advances in imaging, particularly in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), during the past two decades have provided an unparalleled view into human anatomy and function and the understanding of the disease state. At the same time, however, a massive amount of data created by this technology has resulted in "information overload" for physicians to view these studies. There are in principle several problems:

Imaging studies are interpreted usually without appropriate context related to an individual patient (patient history mentioned as part of an imaging request is generally insufficient).

Imaging studies obtained are not standard and not comparable from one institution to another or even in a given patient from one examination to the next.

Most imaging studies obtained are qualitative in nature rather than quantitative which provides for accurate comparison and development of standards.

Imaging reports, also pathology and surgical reports, are not understandable to computers and as such, cannot be readily used for automated visualization and thus exploration and explanation of a disease.

INNOVATION:  This invention combines the following elements:

Seamless, single point of access to heterogeneous data sources such as the Radiology Information System (RIS), Hospital Information System (HIS) Laboratory Information System (LIS) and rule-based organization of that data based on anatomy, findings and time.

Creation of normative quantitative imaging representation of MR studies stratified by age, sex and other demographics.

A deep understanding of the text based on field theory model of language processing which considers words as active elements based on a physics principle.

Instantiation and subsequent visualization for the purpose of explanation and exploration of a cause and effect network and a problem-centric data model to summarize information based on a medical problem rather than traditional patient name or medical record number.

DEVELOPMENT-TO-DATE:  

The XML data gateway has been tested and continues to be refined.

The NLP for knowledge based creation for neuro-anatomy has been tested.

Customizable atlases for the brain have been tested.

Reference: UCLA Case No. 2006-094

Patent Application: WO 2007/056601