A method, system, and computer program product for identifying at least
one three-dimensionally extended lesion within a volumetric region
encompassing an inner surface, an outer surface, and intervening tissue
of a target organ. The method includes: (1) generating a set of voxels
representing a total scanned volume from a set of cross-sectional images
of the target organ; (2) performing segmentation to extract a set of
voxels representing the volumetric region from the set of voxels
representing the total scanned volume; (3) detecting a set of candidate
lesions based on geometric feature values of each voxel in the set of
voxels representing the volumetric region; and (4) selecting the at least
one three-dimensionally extended lesion from the set of candidate lesions
based on at least one of volumetric, morphologic, and texture feature
values of each lesion in the set of candidate lesions.