A method towards automated thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) frame counting using 3D reconstruction

In coronary angiography the flow can be assessed by tracking the contrast agent in the image sequence. The contrast flow is used to estimate the functional behavior of the coronary arteries using TIMI frame count (TFC). In this paper we propose and evaluate a method towards the automation of TFC. The method creates a two dimensional map of the contrast agent in which the opacification of the vessel centerline is plotted against time. This map is used to find the velocity of the contrast agent and subsequently the TFC. The vessel centerline is obtained using the Fast Marching Method to find the minimum cost path between the catheter point and the manually selected endpoint of the vessel. Results from 22 patients show that the algorithm is able to estimate TFC correctly within the intra observer error range of ± 5 frames compared to manual TFC if the contrast agent is completely opacifying the coronary arteries within one cardiac cycle.