Kinematic and deformation analysis of 4-D coronary arterial trees reconstructed from cine angiograms.

In the cardiovascular arena, percutaneous catheter-based interventional (i.e., therapeutic) procedures include a variety of coronary and other vascular system interventions. These procedures use two-dimensional (2-D) X-ray-based imaging as the sole or the major imaging modality for procedure guidance and quantification of key parameters. Coronary vascular curvilinearity is one key parameter that requires a four-dimensional (4-D) format, i.e., three-dimensional (3-D) anatomical representation that changes during the cardiac cycle. A new method has been developed for reconstruction and analysis of these patient-specific 4-D datasets utilizing routine cine angiograms. The proposed method consists of three major processes: 1) reconstruction of moving coronary arterial tree throughout the cardiac cycle; 2) establishment of temporal correspondence with smoothness constraints; and 3) kinematic and deformation analysis of the reconstructed 3-D moving coronary arterial trees throughout the cardiac cycle.