An interactive software module for visualizing coronary arteries in CT angiography

A new software module for coronary artery segmentation and visualization in CT angiography (CTA) datasets is presented, which aims to interactively segment coronary arteries and visualize them in 3D with maximum intensity projection (MIP) and volume rendering (VRT). Materials and Methods:  The software was built as a plug-in for the open-source PACS workstation OsiriX. The main segmentation function is based an optimized “virtual contrast injection” algorithm, which uses fuzzy connectedness of the vessel lumen to separate the contrast-filled structures from each other. The software was evaluated in 42 clinical coronary CTA datasets acquired with 64-slice CT using isotropic voxels of 0.3–0.5 mm. Results:  The median processing time was 6.4 min, and 100% of main branches (right coronary artery, left circumflex artery and left anterior descending artery) and 86.9% (219/252) of visible minor branches were intact. Visually correct centerlines were obtained automatically in 94.7% (321/339) of the intact branches. Conclusion:  The new software is a promising tool for coronary CTA post-processing providing good overviews of the coronary artery with limited user interaction on low-end hardware, and the coronary CTA diagnosis procedure could potentially be more time-efficient than using thin-slab technique.The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com: Chunliang Wang, Hans Frimmel, Anders Persson and Örjan Smedby, An interactive software module for visualizing coronary arteries in CT angiography, 2008, International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, (3), 1-2, 11-18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11548-008-0160-6 Copyright: Springer Science Business Media http://www.springerlink.com/</p