Bernard Chiu1, Xihai Zhao1,
Jinnan Wang2, Niranjan Balu1, Chun Yuan1,
William S. Kerwin1
1Radiology, University of Washington,
Seattle, WA, United States; 2Clinical Sites Research Program,
Philips Research North America, Briarcliff Manor, NY, United States
Peripheral
arterial disease (PAD) is a serious health issue in the western world. Recent
advances in high-resolution MRI have allowed noninvasive and detailed
assessment of PAD, including black-blood MRI visualization of the vessel
wall. Because the length of a femoral artery is substantial, a long field of
view is required to image the femoral artery. Manual outlining of wall
boundaries along the entire length of the femoral artery is an arduous task.
In this work, we proposed and demonstrated an automatic algorithm that is
capable of accurately segmenting the lumen and wall boundaries along the
majority of the femoral artery.