Automatic bone removal for 3D TACE planning with C-arm CBCT: Evaluation of technical feasibility.

Purpose: To evaluate the technical feasibility of automatically removing the ribs and spine from C-arm cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images acquired during transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE).

Material And Methods: Fifty-eight patients (45.8 ± 5.

Landmark constellation models for medical image content identification and localization.

Purpose: Many medical imaging tasks require the detection and localization of anatomical landmarks, for example for the initialization of model-based segmentation or to detect anatomical regions present in an image. A large number of landmark and object localization methods have been described in the literature. The detection of single landmarks may be insufficient to achieve robust localization across a variety of imaging settings and subjects.

High-quality 3-D coronary artery imaging on an interventional C-arm x-ray system.

Purpose: Three-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of the coronary arteries during a cardiac catheter-based intervention can be performed from a C-arm based rotational x-ray angiography sequence. It can support the diagnosis of coronary artery disease, treatment planning, and intervention guidance. 3-D reconstruction also enables quantitative vessel analysis, including vessel dynamics from a time-series of reconstructions.

Clinical feasibility of a fully automated 3D reconstruction of rotational coronary X-ray angiograms.

Background: Although fixed view x-ray angiography remains the primary technique for anatomic imaging of coronary artery disease, the known shortcomings of 2D projection imaging may limit accurate 3D vessel and lesion definition and characterization. A recently developed method to create 3D images of the coronary arteries uses x-ray projection images acquired during a 180 degrees C-arm rotation and continuous contrast injection followed by ECG-gated iterative reconstruction. This method shows promise for providing high-quality 3D reconstructions of the coronary arteries with no user interaction but requires clinical evaluation.

Evaluation of iterative sparse object reconstruction from few projections for 3-D rotational coronary angiography.

A 3-D reconstruction of the coronary arteries offers great advantages in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease, compared to 2-D X-ray angiograms. Besides improved roadmapping, quantitative vessel analysis is possible. Due to the heart's motion, rotational coronary angiography typically provides only 5-10 projections for the reconstruction of each cardiac phase, which leads to a strongly undersampled reconstruction problem.