MAJOR PSOAS MUSCLE AREA DEFINING APPARATUS AND MAJOR PSOAS MUSCLE AREA DEFINING METHOD

摘要

To provide an apparatus and a method for defining a major psoas muscle area in a tomographic image more easily.SOLUTION: A major psoas muscle area defining apparatus 1 for defining a major psoas muscle area in a two-dimensional tomographic image or a three-dimensional tomographic image of an animal including a human includes a pretreatment unit 11, a vertebra area defining unit 12, a seed point setting unit 13, and a muscle area defining unit 14. The pretreatment unit 11 subjects a tomographic image acquired by an X-ray CT apparatus or the like to noise reduction processing, and creates a tomographic image with an improved SN ratio. The vertebra area defining unit 12 defines a vertebra area in the image after the pretreatment. The seed point setting unit 13 sets a seed point for defining the major psoas muscle area in the image after the pretreatment on the basis of the vertebra area defined by the vertebra area defining unit 12. The muscle area defining unit 14 defines a major psoas muscle area around the seed point in the tomographic image by using a dynamic contour method.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1