A method for quantifying the development of pathologies involving changes in volume of a body represented via an imaging technique, including normalizing gray levels by a midway technique for two images I1 and I2 representing the same scene, resulting in two normalized images I′1 and I′2; calculating a map of signed differences between the two normalized images I′1 and I′2; and performing one or more statistical tests based on the assumption of a Gaussian distribution of the gray levels for healthy tissues in the normalized images I′1 and I′2 and/or in the calculated difference map. Advantageously, results of two or more of the tests can be combined for a more specific characterization of the development.