Construction of a coronary artery atlas from CT angiography

Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2014;17(Pt 2):513-20. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-10470-6_64.

Abstract

Describing the detailed statistical anatomy of the coronary artery tree is important for determining the aetiology of heart disease. A number of studies have investigated geometrical features and have found that these correlate with clinical outcomes, e.g. bifurcation angle with major adverse cardiac events. These methodologies were mainly two-dimensional, manual and prone to inter-observer variability, and the data commonly relates to cases already with pathology. We propose a hybrid atlasing methodology to build a population of computational models of the coronary arteries to comprehensively and accurately assess anatomy including 3D size, geometry and shape descriptors. A random sample of 122 cardiac CT scans with a calcium score of zero was segmented and analysed using a standardised protocol. The resulting atlas includes, but is not limited to, the distributions of the coronary tree in terms of angles, diameters, centrelines, principal component shape analysis and cross-sectional contours. This novel resource will facilitate the improvement of stent design and provide a reference for hemodynamic simulations, and provides a basis for large normal and pathological databases.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Computer Simulation
  • Coronary Angiography / methods*
  • Coronary Artery Disease / diagnostic imaging*
  • Coronary Vessels / diagnostic imaging*
  • Humans
  • Models, Anatomic
  • Models, Cardiovascular
  • Radiographic Image Enhancement / methods
  • Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Subtraction Technique*
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed / methods*