Estimation of carotid atherosclerotic plaque volume from in vivo magnetic resonance images

Accurate quantitation of arterial lumen and wall volumes in the carotid arteries is possible using magnetic resonance imaging. Semi-automated algorithms reduce the time required to make the measurements and increase their reproducibility. An algorithm using active contours to aid in localizing the lumen and outer wall boundary of the artery and an automated algorithm to estimate the plaque burden was developed. The algorithm was tested on twenty MRI image sets from ten patients who had undergone unilateral carotid endarterectomy. The algorithm significantly decreases operator time for quantifying arterial volumes and provides very reproducible results.