Interactive decomposition and mapping of saccular cerebral aneurysms using harmonic functions: its first application...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging Analysis
• Computational Fluid Dynamics

Background:

• Medical imaging and computer modeling enable patient-specific intracranial aneurysm studies.
• Comparing large, diverse aneurysm datasets for clinical significance is challenging.
• Objective comparison of surface parameters like wall shear stress requires robust methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel, unified method for mapping aneurysm surfaces onto a unit disk.
• To enable objective comparison of surface-based hemodynamic parameters across diverse aneurysm geometries.
• To facilitate large-scale, multi-institutional studies on intracranial aneurysm natural history.

Main Methods:

• A harmonic function/field approach maps aneurysm surfaces to a unit disk with minimal interaction.
• Vessel geometry is decomposed using distance metrics, local curvatures, and concavities.
• A shape-sensitive weighting scheme and Laplacian equation solve for a harmonic field, identifying aneurysm borders.

Main Results:

• The developed algorithm robustly maps patient-specific intracranial aneurysm geometries.
• The method performs similarly across diverse aneurysm types (bifurcation, terminal, lateral).
• Iso-lines generated by the harmonic field effectively delineate the aneurysm-parent artery junction.

Conclusions:

• This technique offers a simplified, objective approach for comparing surface-based parameters in intracranial aneurysms.
• It supports reliable and reproducible model-to-model comparisons using large datasets.
• The method has the potential to advance research into aneurysm rupture and unrupture dynamics.