Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Carotid Plaque 3D Compound Imaging and Echo-Morphology Analysis: a Bayesian Approach

2007; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Volume: 4; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1109/iembs.2007.4352402

1557-170X

José Seabra, João Sanches, Luís Mendes Pedro, José Fernandes e Fernandes,

Medical Image Segmentation Techniques

This paper describes a method for volume reconstruction of the carotid plaque and presents a novel local characterization of its echo-morphology. The data is composed by a series of nearly parallel ultrasound images (3D Compound Imaging) and the acquisition is performed using traditional noninvasive ultrasound equipment available in most medical facilities, without need of a spatial locator device. The reconstruction algorithm uses the observed pixels inside the plaque, which were obtained in a pre-segmentation stage performed under medical guidance [1]. The paper proposes a Bayesian algorithm which estimates the underlying volume inside the plaque, by filtering and interpolating the data in order to remove speckle noise and fill non- observed regions, respectively. This volume is further used in plaque echo-morphology analysis. The observation model is based on the Rayleigh distribution, commonly used to model speckle noise in ultrasound images. A prior model based on the edge preserving Total Variation Gibbs distribution is also used to fill the gaps on non-evenly spaced observations. An energy function is derived from these models and an iterative algorithm computes its minimizer. The estimated function, defined in a given volume of interest, is used in global and local plaque characterization, namely to estimate its average levels of stenosis, echo-morphology and to identify vulnerable foci inside the plaque. The goal is to make atherosclerosis diagnosis more accurate and complete than using traditional 2D ultrasound analysis.