Detection of the intima and media layer thickness of ultrasound common carotid artery image using efficient active contour segmentation technique.

An active contour segmentation technique for extracting the intima-media layer of the common carotid artery (CCA) ultrasound images employing semiautomatic region of interest identification and speckle reduction techniques is presented in this paper. An attempt has been made to test the ultrasound images of the carotid artery of different subjects with this contour segmentation based on improved dynamic programming method. It is found that the preprocessing of ultrasound images of the CCA with region identification and despeckleing followed by active contour segmentation algorithm can be successfully used in evaluating the intima-media thickness (IMT) of the normal and abnormal subjects. It is also estimated that the segmentation used in this paper results an intermethod error of 0.09 mm and a coefficient of variation of 18.9%, for the despeckled images. The magnitudes of the IMT values have been used to explore the rate of prediction of blockage existing in the cerebrovascular and cardiovascular pathologies and also hypertension and atherosclerosis.