Three-dimensional blood vessel quantification via centerline deformation.

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering
• Computational Anatomy

Background:

• Accurate quantification of abnormal vessel geometry is crucial for clinical decision-making.
• Traditional methods using centerlines can be inaccurate for stenotic or aneurysmal vessels.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel active tube model for improved vessel quantification.
• To address limitations of standard centerline-based measurements in abnormal vasculature.

Main Methods:

• A deformable tube model is registered to the vessel lumen, using a smoothed centerline as its axis.
• Vessel regions are classified (normal, stenotic, aneurysmal) using a cross-sectional distance field.
• Region-adaptive energy functionals guide the registration process.

Main Results:

• The active tube model provides more accurate vessel quantification than original centerlines.
• The registered model effectively measures the volume of aneurysmal regions.
• Validation performed on 3D phantoms and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) datasets.

Conclusions:

• The proposed active tube model offers superior geometric parameter quantification for abnormal vessels.
• This method enhances the accuracy of measurements for clinical applications, including aneurysm volume assessment.
• The validated approach shows promise for improving diagnostic and therapeutic planning in vascular imaging.