A robust construction algorithm of the centerline skeleton for complex aortic vascular structure using computational fluid dynamics

作者：Touati Julien; Bologna Marco; Schwein Adeline; Migliavacca Francesco; Garbey Marc

来源：Computers in Biology and Medicine, 2017, 86: 6-17.

DOI：10.1016/j.compbiomed.2017.04.017

• Abdominal aortic aneurysm
• Centerline
• Computational fluid dynamics
• Computed tomography
• Image segmentation

Centerlines of blood vessels are useful tools to make important anatomical measurements (length, diameter, area), which cannot be accurately obtained using 2D images. In this paper a brand new method for centerline extraction of vascular trees is presented. By using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) we are able to obtain a robust and purely functional centerline allowing us to support better measurements than classic purely geometrical-based centerlines. We show that the CND-based centerline is within a few pixels from the geometrical centerline where the latter is defined (far away from inlet/outlets and from the branches). We show that the centerline computed with our method is not affected by traditional errors of other classical volume-based algorithms such as topological thinning, and could be a potential alternative to be considered for future studies.

• 出版日期2017-7-1