A method for analyzing a three-dimensional (3D) image representative of an
initial volume of interest (VOI) containing a lesion is disclosed. The 3D
image has an associated binary map having voxels associated with a
thresholded variance map of the initial VOI. The initial VOI has
boundaries that may be defined by a cube. A final VOI is determined that
is less than the initial VOI, where the final VOI is a function of the
number of transitions from a boundary voxel to a filtered voxel at an
outer boundary of the lesion. The final VOI is then analyzed to determine
a nodule consistency class, classified based upon the computed nodule
consistency class by applying a voxel-clustering algorithm, and displayed
with respect to three classifications of tissue.