Modeling and measurement of elastic laminae in arteries

Analysis of elastic laminae provides vital information on both the gross and fine structures of the arterial wall, which is vital to assess issues such as mechanical damage caused by cardiovascular disease or clinical treatment. For example, the distribution of thickness, and distance between them, of the elastic laminae within the aorta can provide important clues on how hypertension affects aortic structure temporally. The requisite microscopic (i.e., histologic or immunohistologic) images have numerous segments, making their measurement and characterization a laborious and inaccurate task. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme for automated analysis of lamina thickness. Results show that our scheme can accurately orient image samples, and detect and calculate thickness distribution in cross sections of the aorta. This new technique not only drastically reduces the human labor, it also eliminates inevitable errors and inconsistencies of manual measurements