Measurement of quantifiable parameters by time-density curves in the elastase-induced aneurysm model: first results in the comparison of a flow diverter and a conventional aneurysm stent.

BACKGROUND: Quantifiable parameters to evaluate the effectiveness of flow diverters (FDs) are desirable. We measured time-density curves (TDCs) and calculated quantifiable parameters in the rabbit elastase-induced aneurysm model after stent (Neuroform [NF]) and FD (Pipeline embolisation device [PED]) treatment. METHODS: Sixteen rabbit elastase-induced aneurysms were treated with FD (n = 9) or NF (n = 5). Angiography was performed before and after treatment and TDCs were created. The time to peak (TTP), the full width at half maximum (FWHM) and the average slope of the curve which represent the inflow (IF) and outflow (OF) were calculated. RESULTS: Mean values before treatment were TTP = 0.8 s, FWHM = 1.2 s, IF = 153.5 and OF = -54.9. After PED treatment, the TTP of 1.8 s and FWHM of 47.8 s were extended. The IF was 31.2 and the OF was -11.5 and therefore delayed. The values after NF treatment (TTP = 1.1 s, FWHM = 1.8 s, IF = 152.9, OF = -33.2) changed only slightly. CONCLUSION: It was feasible to create TDCs in the rabbit aneurysm model. Parameters describing the haemodynamic effect of PED and NF were calculated and were different according to the type of device used. These parameters could possibly serve as predictive markers for aneurysm occlusion.

3D dynamic roadmapping for abdominal catheterizations.

Despite rapid advances in interventional imaging, the navigation of a guide wire through abdominal vasculature remains, not only for novice radiologists, a difficult task. Since this navigation is mostly based on 2D fluoroscopic image sequences from one view, the process is slowed down significantly due to missing depth information and patient motion. We propose a novel approach for 3D dynamic roadmapping in deformable regions by predicting the location of the guide wire tip in a 3D vessel model from the tip's 2D location, respiratory motion analysis, and view geometry. In a first step, the method compensates for the apparent respiratory motion in 2D space before backprojecting the 2D guide wire tip into three dimensional space, using a given projection matrix. To countervail the error connected to the projection parameters and the motion compensation, as well as the ambiguity caused by vessel deformation, we establish a statistical framework, which computes a reliable estimate of the guide wire tip location within the 3D vessel model. With this 2D-to-3D transfer, the navigation can be performed from arbitrary viewing angles, disconnected from the static perspective view of the fluoroscopic sequence. Tests on a realistic breathing phantom and on synthetic data with a known ground truth clearly reveal the superiority of our approach compared to naive methods for 3D roadmapping. The concepts and information presented in this paper are based on research and are not commercially available.

Segmentation-driven 2D-3D registration for abdominal catheter interventions.

2D-3D registration of abdominal angiographic data is a difficult problem due to hard time constraints during the intervention, different vessel contrast in volume and image, and motion blur caused by breathing. We propose a novel method for aligning 2D Digitally Subtracted Angiograms (DSA) to Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA) volumes, which requires no user interaction intrainterventionally. In an iterative process, we link 2D segmentation and 2D-3D registration using a probability map, which creates a common feature space where outliers in 2D and 3D are discarded consequently. Unlike other approaches, we keep user interaction low while high capture range and robustness against vessel variability and deformation are maintained. Tests on five patient data sets and a comparison to two recently proposed methods show the good performance of our method.