Detection of blood vessel regions using weighted MIP from non-enhanced MR imaging

Recently, arterio sclerosis obliterans (ASO) caused by the chronic ischemia of limbs increase remarkably. As one of the diagnosis methods of this disease, the image diagnosis such as MR image is used on medical fields. In this paper, we propose a method to develop medical diagnostic support system using fresh blood imaging (FBI) method, in which the structure of blood vessel regions in legs could be analyzed from non-enhanced MR images. As the method, an initial point of the vessel regions in the artery areas is acquired from weighted MIP images automatically. Then extend the artery areas using region growing method. Especially, we developed for the position relationship of the crossed blood vessel and the segment accuracy in peripheral artery areas that is improved by using weighted MIP images that the result could not be gotten in conventional MIP images. To evaluate our proposed method, we performed our proposed method and satisfactory results are achieved.