Methodology and evaluation of the renal arterial system

The broad range of medical images and image processing technologies are applied in urology. The aim was to propose methodology to assess three-dimensional (3D) arrangement of renal arterial tree and to build a statistical model for analyzing the layout of arteries in the sections of the kidney.

The series of kidney CT slices are analyzed using image processing procedures and further the 3D model of arterial systems is converted to a graph tree which includes information about features of the renal arterial system.

The selected endocast was transformed to the form of the 3D connected tubes, further to the tree data structure and next analyzed. The information about 3D coordinates of the nodes, also branch length and diameter were stored. Renal arterial system of the considered kidney possessed 181 branches with 14 bifurcation levels. The number of branches was highest at the 9th bifurcation level. The mean length of the arterial branch on each bifurcation level was constant (6 mm). The branch diameters rapidly decreased after each bifurcation. The number of terminal branches increases up to 9th level where there are 19 terminal branches. The mean length of terminal arteries was 7.17 mm while the mean radius 0.46 mm. A statistically significant correlation between parameters that described sub-trees was noticed. It was observed that the individual artery segments occupy a separate space in the kidney volume.

The methodology has the potential to assist in presurgical planning based on branching patterns of the renal arterial system and corresponding pathology.