Computer-assisted identification and modelling of internal carotid arteries from 3D CE-MR angiograms for stenosis quantification

In this study a methodology is presented to identify and quantify the stenosed internal carotid artery from Contrast-Enhanced MR Angiograms. The internal carotid artery automatically identified by tracking the carotid bifurcation and selecting the artery branch with no further arterial branches. An approach is proposed to segment the arteries by applying adaptive thresholds along the central axis of the artery based on 3D cross-sectional intensity profiles. Isosurface models from the original MR data are used to measure the arterial area, in planes perpendicular to the central axis. Experimental results are included to demonstrate the performance of this proposed extraction and modelling tool, giving effective identification of the ICA and enabling consistent and repeatable stenosis quantification.