A quantitative study of coronary vasculature in four dimensions

The medical diagnosis and study of heart disease utilize two common imaging modalities, biplane X-ray angiography and intravascular ultrasound. We have developed a method (data fusion) which combines these technologies to produce three-dimensional reconstructions of coronary vessels. This paper describes recent extensions to this technology in which four-dimensional velocity measurements and three-dimensional volumetric measurements can be performed. The measurement of vessel velocity is of great importance In the design of new image acquisition devices, and the volumetric measurements are useful in the study of vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. Both methods have been validated in computer simulations, yielding minimal errors. The method for the determination of the vessel velocity has been tested on routine patient data and provided consistently good results