Ultrasound Carotid Artery Intima-Media Thickness (IMT) Segmentation Review

Stroke and heart attack, which could be led by a kind of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease named asatherosclerosis, would seriously cause human morbidity and mortality. And the carotid artery of intima-media thickness (IMT) is a key indicator to the disease. With the development of computer assisted diagnosis (CAD) technology, Ultrasound imaging, being real-time, economic, reliable, safe, and now seems to become a standard in vascular assessment methodology especially for the measurement of IMT. This review is an attempt to discuss the clinical relevance of measurements in clinical practice at first, and then followed by the challenges that one has to face when approaching the segmentation of ultrasound images. Secondly, the paper is presentation of common used methods for the IMT segmentation and measurement. An overview of summary and future perspectives is given in conclusion finally.