Automatic segmentation and 3D reconstruction of intravascular ultrasound images for Volumetric Quantitative Analysis of Tissue Characteristics of Coronary Plaques

Pathology and autopsy studies have revealed that abrupt disruption of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque is blamable for most acute coronary syndromes. These plaques are characterized by a thin fibrous cap and lipid-rich core with abundant inflammatory cells. Today, there is a strong need of new techniques for plaques characterization able to provide more comprehensive assessment of the atherosclerotic plaques based on Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) which is a standard imaging modality allows tomographic imaging of coronary and peripheral arteries for identification of plaque formation. In same context, Conventional 3D IVUS techniques provide sub-optimal visualization. In this paper, we present an add-on technique for existing IVUS as an enhancement for vulnerable plaque visualization in order to provide a powerful tool to overcome the limited comprehensive information of 2D IVUS by volumetric 3D IVUS visualization.