wallPointer - Features

Diseases resulting from asbestos generally include asbestosis, lung cancer, malignant mesothelioma, asbestos pleural effusion and diffuse pleural thickening and so on. Among the recognition criteria for diffuse pleural thickening, measurement of “thickness” and “expansion” is important.

As compared with X-ray images which show overlapped front and rear images, CT that displays axial images allows evaluation with higher precision. Furthermore, the wallPointer can calculate the maximum pleura thickness in the pulmonary area with color differentiation display by thickness. Also, it allows observation of the expansion toward the body axis while rotating 3D images of the pulmonary area.

The pulmonary area and convex region of the pleura are automatically extracted and displayed with colour differentiation by pleura thickness. In addition, expansion is calculated using the angle from the lung centre of the right and left pulmonary areas.

There are 3 kinds of analysis modes. With “Single-slice mode” and “Selected-slice mode”, any of the selected slice sections can be analyzed. “All-slice mode” allows analysis of the images of the total pulmonary area and observation of the distribution condition of the convex region in 3D images.

The reporting functions of wallPointer let you not only save results of the current examination but also add those of previous examinations, demonstrating the change of the thickness and expansion of the convex region of the pleura at a glance. Also, analysis images can be outputted in color DICOM format or BMP format and analysis figures in text format (CSV).