Detection and measurement of arc of lumen calcification from intravascular ultrasound using Harris Corner detection

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is a medical imaging system, which uses a specially designed catheter equipped with a small ultrasound probing device at the distal end of the catheter. This system allows the ultrasound technology in visualizing the blood vessels from the inside and is capable of imaging the diseased vessels, measuring length of the plaque, and detecting composition of the plaque and the vessels. IVUS is an efficient method for detecting coronary calcium. Though IVUS is unable to measure the thickness of the calcium, but it can detect the arc of the calcium layer. The presence of calcium deposited as well as plaque within the coronary vessel wall is an indication of escemic heart diseases. In the present work Fuzzy C-Means segmentation and Harris Corner detection is used to detect and measure the width and arc of a calcium deposition from IVUS image by reducing the detection error made by the physicians´ naked eye for medical study.