Medical decision making support apparatus and control method for the same

Abstract

A medical decision making support apparatus performs the inference processing of obtaining an inference result by performing inference processing associated with medical diagnosis based on a plurality of pieces of input medical information, and the calculation processing of calculating the degree of denial or affirmation of the inference result in association with each of a plurality of partial sets including each medical information extracted from the plurality of pieces of medical information as an element. The medical decision making support apparatus presents a user an inference result obtained by the inference processing and negative information indicating medical information included in a partial set, of the plurality of partial sets, for which the degree of denial is calculated by the calculation processing.

1 - 13 . (canceled) 
     
     
         14 . A diagnosis support apparatus comprising:
 an obtaining unit configured to obtain a plurality of pieces of medical information regarding an interpretation target image displayed on a display unit;   an inference unit configured to, based on at least a portion of medical information included in the plurality of pieces of medical information, obtain an inference probability with respect to each of a plurality of candidates of diagnosis name concerning medical diagnosis; and   a display control unit configured to cause the display unit to display: the interpretation target image, an inference result including at least one diagnosis name included in the plurality of candidates of diagnosis name, and medical information which affects the inference result and retrieved from the plurality of pieces of medical information.   
     
     
         15 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein medical information affecting the inference result is selected from medical information used for obtaining the inference probability. 
     
     
         16 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display the plurality of pieces of medical information obtained by the obtaining unit. 
     
     
         17 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the plurality of pieces of medical information include at least either an interpretation finding or image feature amount regarding the interpretation target image. 
     
     
         18 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the obtaining unit obtains the plurality of pieces of medical information by accepting user's input. 
     
     
         19 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display, as affirmative information, medical information that gives an affirmative effect on the inference probability, from the plurality of pieces of medical information. 
     
     
         20 . The apparatus according to  claim 19 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display, as negative information, medical information that gives a negative effect on the inference probability, from the plurality of pieces of medical information. 
     
     
         21 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display, as negative information, medical information that gives a negative effect on the inference probability, from the plurality of pieces of medical information. 
     
     
         22 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , further comprising a calculation unit configured to calculate a degree of effect on at least one inference probability by the portion of the plurality of pieces of medical information. 
     
     
         23 . The apparatus according to  claim 22 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to, based on the degree of effect, display medical information that gave an effect on the inference probability. 
     
     
         24 . The apparatus according to  claim 23 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display, as medical information that gave an effect on the inference probability, medical information or the portion, for which a largest degree of effect was calculated. 
     
     
         25 . The apparatus according to  claim 23 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display, as medical information that gave a negative effect on the inference probability, medical information or the portion, for which a largest degree of negative effect was calculated. 
     
     
         26 . The apparatus according to  claim 23 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display a predetermined number of pieces of medical information specified from medical information affecting the inference result based on the degree of effect. 
     
     
         27 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the inference unit obtains inference probability for each of the plurality of candidates of diagnosis name by calculating posteriori probability, based on at least a portion of medical information included in the plurality of pieces of medical information, with respect to each of the plurality of candidates of diagnosis name to which a priopri probability is set. 
     
     
         28 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein
 the display control unit causes the display unit to display: the interpretation target image, inference probability of each of the plurality of pieces candidates of diagnosis name, and medical information affecting the inference probability, of the plurality of pieces of medical information, and   medical information affecting the inference probability is displayed for each of the plurality of candidates of diagnosis name.   
     
     
         29 . The apparatus according to  claim 27 , further comprising an evaluating unit configured to obtain an evaluation value about the posteriori probability,
 wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display a warning associated with reliability of the inference result when the evaluation value does not satisfy a predetermined condition.   
     
     
         30 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display, as the inference result, a diagnosis name specified based on the inference probability, of the plurality of candidates of diagnosis name. 
     
     
         31 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display the interpretation target image in a place which does not overlap with a display of the inference result and a display of the medical information. 
     
     
         32 . The apparatus according to  claim 14 , wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display a predetermined number of pieces of medical information of medical information affecting the inference result. 
     
     
         33 . An information processing method of diagnosis support, the method comprising:
 obtaining a plurality of pieces of medical information regarding an interpretation target image displayed on a display unit;   obtaining, based on at least a portion of medical information included in the plurality of pieces of medical information, an inference probability with respect to each of a plurality of candidates of diagnosis name concerning medical diagnosis; and   causing the display unit to display: the interpretation target image, an inference result including at least one diagnosis name included in the plurality of candidates of diagnosis name; and medical information which affects the inference result and retrieved from the plurality of pieces of medical information.