Graph-based optimal cross section boundary for vessel segmentation and stenosis quantification

In this paper, we propose a graph-based method to find the optimal cross section boundary for vessel segmentation. The voxels on the cross sectional plane are assumed to lay on the circles around the centerline point. The voxels on the circles with different radii are then transformed to a graph, by which the objective of finding the optimal boundary is converted to choosing the optimal path in the graph. A new cost function for the edge cost of the graph is proposed to obtain a smooth, optimal boundary of the cross section. Based on the optimal cross section boundary, we also propose a method for stenosis detection and quantification. The proposed method for segmentation and stenosis detection has been evaluated to be accurate and highly computationally efficient.