Remote densitometric analysis of stenotic lesions

In conventional densitometric evaluation of stenoses the digitized angiogram is displayed on a multi-grey-level scope to facilitate operator interaction. With a remote terminal, linked to the computer with regular telephone lines, such display is unacceptably slow. To circumvent this difficulty, the projection of the original image is used for interactions through a sonic pen digitizer interfaced to the computer. A coordinate system can be defined on the projected image, in addition to the blood vessel segment to be analyzed by the operator. The computer can retrieve these features on the stored-pre-digitized image to carry out the quantitative evaluation of the stenosis. This method reduces the time of analysis and allows several institutions to share the same computing facility.