3D reconstruction of coronary arteries using Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) and angiography

Contrast coronary angiography and catheter based Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) are complementary imaging techniques, and have been widely used in clinical diagnosis of vascular diseases. In this paper, a novel approach of 3D reconstruction of coronary vessels based on fusion of coronary angiogram and IVUS images was proposed. First, 3D vessel centerline was reconstructed from a pair of angiograms acquired from a single plane angiography. Secondly, a preprocessing method was proposed for novel IVUS images. Thereafter the coronary lumen and media-adventitia borders were identified based on modified GVF Snake method. Finally, the axial position of each IVUS slice was determined along the 3D vessel centerline and the vessel segment of interest was reconstructed. The results showed that the current reconstruction approach could provide a better segmentation of coronary lumen and media-adventitia borders. The reconstructed 3D vessel can be used as a virtual platform for further study on the coronary arteries.