TY - GEN
T1 - A user friendly system for ultrasound carotid intima-media thickness image interpretation
AU - Zhu, Xiangjun
AU - Kendall, Christopher B.
AU - Hurst, R. Todd
AU - Liang, Jianming
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Assessment of Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (CIMT) by B-mode ultrasound is a technically mature and reproducible technology. Given the high morbidity, mortality and the large societal burden associated with CV diseases, as a safe yet inexpensive tool, CIMT is increasingly utilized for cardiovascular (CV) risk stratification. However, CIMT requires a precise measure of the thickness of the intima and media layers of the carotid artery that can be tedious, time consuming, and demand specialized expertise and experience. To this end, we have developed a highly user-friendly system for semiautomatic CIMT image interpretation. Our contribution is the application of active contour models (snake models) with hard constraints, leading to an accurate, adaptive and user-friendly border detection algorithm. A comparison study with the CIMT measurement software in Siemens Syngo® Arterial Health Package shows that our system gives a small bias in mean (0.049 ±0.051mm) and maximum (0.010 ± 0.083 mm) CIMT measures and offers a higher reproducibility (average correlation coefficients were 0.948 and 0.844 in mean and maximum CIMT respectively (P <0.001)). This superior performance is attributed to our novel interface design for hard constraints in the snake models.
AB - Assessment of Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (CIMT) by B-mode ultrasound is a technically mature and reproducible technology. Given the high morbidity, mortality and the large societal burden associated with CV diseases, as a safe yet inexpensive tool, CIMT is increasingly utilized for cardiovascular (CV) risk stratification. However, CIMT requires a precise measure of the thickness of the intima and media layers of the carotid artery that can be tedious, time consuming, and demand specialized expertise and experience. To this end, we have developed a highly user-friendly system for semiautomatic CIMT image interpretation. Our contribution is the application of active contour models (snake models) with hard constraints, leading to an accurate, adaptive and user-friendly border detection algorithm. A comparison study with the CIMT measurement software in Siemens Syngo® Arterial Health Package shows that our system gives a small bias in mean (0.049 ±0.051mm) and maximum (0.010 ± 0.083 mm) CIMT measures and offers a higher reproducibility (average correlation coefficients were 0.948 and 0.844 in mean and maximum CIMT respectively (P <0.001)). This superior performance is attributed to our novel interface design for hard constraints in the snake models.
KW - User-Friendly Software Systems
KW - active contour models
KW - cardiovascular disease
KW - snakes with hard constraints
KW - ultrasound Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (CIMT)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79957953235&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=79957953235&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1117/12.878426
DO - 10.1117/12.878426
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:79957953235
SN - 9780819485106
T3 - Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE
BT - Medical Imaging 2011
T2 - Medical Imaging 2011: Ultrasonic Imaging, Tomography, and Therapy
Y2 - 13 February 2011 through 14 February 2011
ER -