Near-Infrared Forearm Vascular Width Calculation Using Radius Estimation of Tangent Circle

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering
• Vascular Biology

Background:

• Accurate measurement of forearm blood vessel width is crucial for assessing vascular health.
• Existing methods for vessel width calculation may lack precision, particularly concerning vessel orientation and geometric characteristics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and evaluate a novel blood vessel width calculation algorithm for forearm near-infrared images.
• To improve the accuracy of vessel width measurement by considering vascular skeleton orientation and geometric features.

Main Methods:

• Preprocessing of near-infrared images including cropping, contrast stretching, denoising, enhancement, and segmentation.
• Extraction of the vascular skeleton using the Zhang-Suen refinement algorithm.
• Vascular edge detection via the Canny edge detection method.
• Development and application of the radius estimation of the tangent circle (RETC) algorithm for vessel width calculation.

Main Results:

• The proposed RETC algorithm demonstrated high accuracy in calculating forearm blood vessel width.
• Experimental results showed a mean absolute error of 0.36 and a variance of 0.10.
• The RETC algorithm significantly reduced errors compared to traditional measurement methods.

Conclusions:

• The RETC algorithm provides a more accurate and reliable method for measuring forearm blood vessel width from near-infrared images.
• This algorithm's consideration of vascular geometry and orientation enhances its clinical applicability.
• The findings suggest potential for improved diagnostic capabilities in vascular health assessment.