Coronary characterization in multi-slice computed tomography

We present a 3D extraction method of coronaries in MSCT, which aims at refining the delineating of the vascular inner wall and the calcified contours for quantification purposes. The proposed approach makes use of a two-step process: the first one performs a vessel central axis tracking by applying a semi-automatic 3D geometrical moment-based method. A refinement is then performed, based on a level set approach, to improve the detection accuracy of both contours and calcifications. The level sets were applied first in 2-D space, independently on each slice, then in 3-D to perform the extraction directly in the volume. A comparison between the 2-D and 3-D procedures is provided in term of quality of delineation.