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Updated: May 22, 2026
Analysis of Coronary Vessels in Cleared Embryonic Hearts
Published on: December 7, 2016
A review of coronary vessel segmentation algorithms
Maryam Taghizadeh Dehkordi1, Saeed Sadri, Alimohamad Doosthoseini
1Department of Electrical and Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran.
Insights
Accurate coronary artery segmentation from X-ray angiograms is crucial for diagnosing heart disease. This study explores vessel extraction and enhancement techniques to overcome challenges like overlapping vessels and poor contrast in coronary angiography.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular imaging
- Medical image analysis
- Biomedical engineering
Background:
- Coronary heart disease is a leading global health concern.
- Coronary angiography is the gold standard for assessing coronary artery disease.
- Interpreting angiograms is challenging due to vessel overlap and poor contrast.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate coronary vessel extraction and enhancement techniques.
- To evaluate algorithms for coronary vessel segmentation in X-ray angiograms.
- To address limitations in current coronary angiography image analysis.
Main Methods:
- Review of coronary vessel extraction algorithms.
- Analysis of enhancement techniques for X-ray angiograms.
- Comparative study of segmentation algorithm capabilities.
Main Results:
- Identified key challenges in coronary vessel segmentation: low contrast, deformable vessel shapes, and bone shadows.
- Evaluated various techniques for improving vessel visibility and extraction accuracy.
- Presented the performance of significant coronary vessel segmentation algorithms.
Conclusions:
- Effective coronary vessel extraction and enhancement are vital for accurate diagnosis.
- Advanced algorithms are necessary to overcome inherent limitations in X-ray angiograms.
- Further research into segmentation techniques can improve cardiovascular disease assessment.
Abstract:
Coronary heart disease has been one of the main threats to human health. Coronary angiography is taken as the gold standard; for the assessment of coronary artery disease. However, sometimes, the images are difficult to visually interpret because of the crossing and overlapping of vessels in the angiogram. Vessel extraction from X-ray angiograms has been a challenging problem for several years. There are several problems in the extraction of vessels, including: weak contrast between the coronary arteries and the background, unknown and easily deformable shape of the vessel tree, and strong overlapping shadows of the bones. In this article we investigate the coronary vessel extraction and enhancement techniques, and present capabilities of the most important algorithms concerning coronary vessel segmentation.