In order to accurately detect an abnormal tissue pattern from a medical image, the following are performed: a candidate detection section receives the image and detects abnormal tissue pattern candidates from the image a false positive candidate elimination section eliminates false positive candidates from the detected abnormal tissue pattern candidates a proximity characteristic amount calculation section calculates the ratio of the number of the false positive candidates to the number of the abnormal tissue pattern candidates included in a predetermined region surrounding each of remaining abnormal tissue pattern candidates, remaining after the elimination process, as a proximity characteristic amount and a determination section determines whether or not each of the remaining abnormal tissue pattern candidates is a false positive candidate based on the proximity characteristic amount.
