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Tissue characterization in intravascular ultrasound images
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Tissue characterization in intravascular ultrasound images

Xiangmin Zhang, Charles R McKay and Milan Sonka
IEEE transactions on medical imaging, Vol.17(6), pp.889-899
12/1998
DOI: 10.1109/42.746622
PMID: 10048846

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Abstract

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging permits direct visualization of vascular pathology. It has been used to evaluate lumen and plaque in coronary arteries and its clinical significance for guidance of coronary interventions is increasingly recognized. Conventional manual evaluation is tedious and time-consuming. This paper describes a highly automated approach to segmentation of coronary wall and plaque, and determination of plaque composition in individual IVUS images and pullback image sequences. The determined regions of plaque were classified in one of three classes: soft plaque, hard plaque, or hard plaque shadow. The method's performance was assessed in vitro and in vivo in comparison with observer-defined independent standards. In the analyzed images and image sequences, the mean border positioning error of the wall and plaque borders ranged from 0.13-0.17 mm. Plaque classification correctness was 90%.
Algorithms Coronary Vessels - diagnostic imaging Coronary Artery Disease - diagnostic imaging Coronary Vessels - pathology Ultrasonography - statistics & numerical data Coronary Artery Disease - classification Humans Coronary Artery Disease - pathology In Vitro Techniques Cadaver Ultrasonography - methods

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