A digital viewer with quantitative coronary angiographic information
Evangelos A. Yfantis, A. Popovich, Cass A. Pinkerton, G. Than · 2002
Quantitative angiography, based on the user finding the center of the artery in the digitized image of the heart and using the mouse to trace the stenosis and measure its degree, are more reliable than visual estimation but entirely accurate. An intelligent algorithm is developed using cardiac X-ray angiographic digital information, then we plan the repair of the stenoses. The resulting information can be transmitted to a robot to inflate the balloon and repair the stenoses. The coronary artery is detected based on differences in the gray scale of the cardiac image. Based on discontinuities of the first derivative and the twist vector along the artery boundaries we are able to quantify the number of stenoses along the artery, and their degree. Parametric splines tracing the artery are developed. The purpose of the splines is to mathematically reconstruct the damaged section(s). The maximum distance between the reconstructed artery and the damaged part of the artery defines a mathematical measure of the degree of damage. The theory and algorithms developed in this research paper have been implemented and is one of the options included in our cineangiographic digital viewer. Other options involve other image processing techniques.