Skeleton-based fast, fully automated generation of vessel tree structure for clinical evaluation of blood vessel systems

• This chapter focuses on skeleton detection for clinical evaluation of blood vessel systems. In clinical evaluation, there is a need for fast and accurate segmentation algorithms that can reliably provide vessel measurements and additional information for clinicians to decide the diagnosis.Since blood vessels have a characteristic tubular shape, their segmentation can be accelerated and facilitated by first identifying the rough vessel centerlines, which can be seen as a special case of an image skeleton extraction algorithm. A segmentation algorithm will finally use the resulting skeleton as a seed region during the segmentation. The proposed method takes an unprocessed 3D computed tomography angiography (CTA) scan as an input and generates a connected graph of centrally located arterial voxels. The method works in two levels, where large arteries are captured in the first level, and small arteries are added in the second one. Experimental results show that the method can achieve high overlap rate and acceptable detection rate accuracies. High computational efficiency of the method opens the possibility for an interactive clinical use.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Medicinteknik -- Medicinsk bildbehandling (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Medical Engineering -- Medical Image Processing (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Anatomy-based analysis

Artery nodes connection

Artery nodes detection

Blood vessel systems

Computed tomography angiography

Skeleton extraction

Vascular segmentation

Vessel tree structure

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