US Patent 10290101 Heat map based medical image diagnostic mechanism

A device to provide a heat map based medical image diagnostic mechanism is described. An image analysis application executed by the device receives a medical image from a medical image provider. A region of interest (ROI) is determined or provided by a user. A disease state score including a malignancy score is calculated for the ROI. Next, the ROI is partitioned into sub-regions. Impact values associated with the sub-regions are also determined. The impact values indicate the influence of a sub-region on the disease state score. Furthermore, annotations are determined based on pixel values associated with the sub-region. A heat map of the sub-regions is also generated based on the impact values. The heat map is labeled with the annotations. Next, the heat map is overlaid on the ROI. The medical image is provided with the heat map to the user.