Quantiative Vascular Image Analysis System

描述（由申请人提供）：心血管疾病，由于 动脉粥样硬化仍然是美国的主要死因。 由动脉粥样硬化疾病引起的临床症状和发病率 由于斑块不稳定，并表现为溃疡、血栓形成和/或 斑块内出血。尽管许多研究都是为了了解 动脉粥样硬化疾病的进展，很少有人知道如何 在体内非侵入性地识别“脆弱”病变，或者如何监测 病变纵向进展。 该提案提出了一个计划，以发展定量血管分析 可用于测量动脉粥样硬化斑块特征的QVAS系统 半自动在申请的第一阶段，我们将集中 开发：1）准备用于分析的图像数据（例如，性能 表面线圈灵敏度轮廓校正和图像配准），2） 开发通用图像处理特征以简化图像审查过程， 3）开发血管壁定量测量的基本功能 (e.g.壁面积测量、组织区域识别）。该系统 设计用于分析高分辨率磁共振（MR）图像， 血管壁（例如，人颈动脉），用各种对比剂 权重这些功能以后将与我们的长期目标相结合， 开发一个半自动系统，用于交互式血管分析， 血管磁共振成像

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cardiovascular disease due to atherosclerosis remains the leading cause of death in the United States. Clinical symptoms and morbidity that result from atherosclerotic disease are due to plaque instability and are manifested as ulceration, thrombosis, and/or intraplaque hemorrhage. Though much research has been directed at understanding the progression of atherosclerotic disease, little is known about how to identify 'vulnerable' lesions in vivo non-invasively, or how to monitor the lesion progression longitudinally. This proposal presents a plan to develop a quantitative vascular analysis system (QVAS) that can be used to measure atherosclerotic plaque features semi-automatically. In Phase I of the application, we will focus our development on: 1) preparing the image data for analysis (e.g. performance surface coil sensitivity profile correction, and image registration), 2) developing general image processing features to ease the image review process, and 3) developing basic functions for vascular wall quantitative measurement (e.g. wall area measurement, tissue region identification). The system is designed to analyze high resolution magnetic resonance (MR) images of the vascular wall (e.g., human carotid artery) taken with various contrast weightings. These features will later be integrated with our long term goal of developing a semi-automatic system for interactive vascular analysis of vascular MR imaging.