Abstract #1274

Xu D, Liu F, Takaya N, Kerwin W, Ross W, Chu B, Klein H

MRI measurements of carotid artery wall volume, thickness, and maximal area, have become important parameters of atherosclerotic disease severity and surrogate markers for therapeutic response. To assist in these measurements, we developed interactive Snakes (I-Snakes), which offer a highly automated and flexible interface for measuring plaque burden. Tests of I-Snakes show that plaque boundaries can be extracted in 1-2 minutes per artery and yield significant improvements in scan-to-scan reproducibility compared to manual outlining