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.

Projection-based motion compensation and reconstruction of coronary segments and cardiac implantable devices using rotational X-ray angiography.

Cardiologists use two-dimensional projection images in conventional X-ray coronary angiography for the assessment of three-dimensional structures. During minimally invasive interventions there is a need to clearly visualize and analyze contrast filled coronary arteries, surrounding tissue, and implanted devices. Three-dimensional reconstruction of these structures is challenging due to the cardiac and respiratory motion.

Advanced visibility enhancement for stents and other devices: image processing aspects.

In non-contrast-enhanced x-ray sequences, the image quality of stents can be enhanced by motion compensating and integrating images of exposure sequences. Three-dimensional stent reconstruction has been developed to allow enhanced stent visualization and assessment in three dimensions. This article gives an overview of the different methods used for enhanced stent visualization, describes studies that have evaluated these methods, and summarizes results of these methods on other cardiac and non-cardiac devices.

Three-dimensional coronary visualization, Part 2: 3D reconstruction.

Fully automatic generation of a volumetric representation of the coronary artery tree can be achieved by rotational coronary angiography acquisition and three-dimensional tomographic reconstruction. The generated volume datasets can assist the physician during percutaneous coronary interventions by visualizing three-dimensional coronary morphology and offering utility tools to derive various quantitative measurements. These utility tools allow lesion assessment, optimal working-view selection for specific vessel segments, and improved guidance via overlay functionality or follow C-arc.

Left coronary artery thrombus characterized by a fully automatic three-dimensional gated reconstruction.

Rotational coronary angiography and subsequent automatic modeling or reconstruction can result in clinically valuable three-dimensional (3D) representations of the coronaries. From these 3D representations information can be derived for specific coronary segments, such as lesion length, vessel diameter, bifurcation angles, and optimal viewing angles. In this case report, we highlight the characterization of a left coronary artery thrombus by a fully automatic 3D gated reconstruction.

The effect of automated marker detection on in vivo volumetric stent reconstruction.

New drug eluting stents are less radiopaque than bare metal stents and therefore difficult to see with conventional X-ray coronary angiography. 2D StentBoost and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) are routinely used to evaluate stent deployment and vessel apposition during a percutaneous coronary intervention. IVUS images give cross-sectional information about the stent lumen and surrounding tissue.