A computational tool for coronary atherosclerotic plaque analysis of Virtual Histology images

Virtual Histology (IVUS-VH) is an image modality, derived from intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), which allows the identification of atheromatous components, providing a frame-by-frame tissue classification into four classes: Fibrotic Tissue, Fibro-Fatty Tissue, Necrotic-Core and Dense Calcium. According to current pathology consensus, intra-plaque spatial distribution of tissue elements has become an important issue for lesion classification. However, there is not an available environment to realize previously described analysis. To attend this demand, a computational tool has been implemented in this work. ImageJ has been used as development framework. Morphological operations and labeling algorithms of binary images were used to determine neighborhood relations between confluent sets of pixels, such as to measure distance to the arterial lumen. In the next months, we intend to distribute this tool for download under request.