| CPC A61B 5/004 (2013.01) [A61B 2560/0223 (2013.01)] | 15 Claims |
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1. A medical image processing apparatus, comprising:
processing circuitry that
extracts, from a medical image, anatomical landmarks that represent feature points of a spine included in the medical image,
identifies a landmark group to which the extracted anatomical landmarks belong from among landmark groups, in each of which a set of anatomical landmarks that are grouped based on the spine and a regression curve are associated, the regression curve indicating continuity information that defines continuity among all of the anatomical landmarks that belong to a same landmark group as relationship information that defines a physical relationship between the set of anatomical landmarks,
calculates, based on the regression curve of the identified landmark group, a continuity appropriateness index that is an index indicating a degree of appropriateness of continuity between each pair of anatomical landmarks in the extracted anatomical landmarks, and
corrects, based on the continuity appropriateness index, a position of an anatomical landmark, among the extracted anatomical landmarks, that does not satisfy the continuity defined by the regression curve to move toward a position that satisfies the continuity.
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