Geometrically correct 3-D reconstruction of coronary wall and plaque: combining biplane angiography and intravascular ultrasound

The most common approach to 3-D reconstruction of coronary vessels from intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) pullback image sequences is to simply stack up ECG-gated segmented images. This approach fails in tortuous coronary arteries. In this paper a new automated method for 3-D reconstruction of tortuous vessels is reported that is based on data fusion between IVUS pullbacks and biplane angiograms. Prior to a constant-speed IVUS pullback, the heart is imaged with a biplane X-ray system. The 3-D lumen centerline of the examined vessel segment is reconstructed from a geometrically corrected biplane angiogram. Borders of vessel wall and plaque are automatically detected in the IVUS images. The segmented IVUS cross sections are mapped to and interpolated along the reconstructed 3-D centerline which is represented by a differentiable sequence of 3-D Bezier curves. The twist of the IVUS catheter during pullback is calculated from the previously reconstructed 3-D vessel centerline. First validations and results are presented from vessel phantoms and cadaveric pig hearts.