ABSTRACT
This work presents a computational framework to perform a systematic and comprehensive assessment of the morphometry of coronary arteries from in vivo medical images. The methodology embraces image segmentation, arterial vessel representation, characterization and comparison, data storage, and finally analysis. Validation is performed using a sample of 48 patients. Data mining of morphometric information of several coronary arteries is presented. Results agree to medical reports in terms of basic geometric and anatomical variables. Concerning geometric descriptors, inter-artery and intra-artery correlations are studied. Data reported here can be useful for the construction and setup of blood flow models of the coronary circulation. Finally, as an application example, similarity criterion to assess vasculature likelihood based on geometric features is presented and used to test geometric similarity among sibling patients. Results indicate that likelihood, measured through geometric descriptors, is stronger between siblings compared with non-relative patients. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Subject(s)
Coronary Vessels/anatomy & histology , Coronary Circulation , Coronary Vessels/diagnostic imaging , Coronary Vessels/physiology , Female , Humans , Likelihood Functions , Male , Middle Aged , SiblingsABSTRACT
Congenital coronary artery fistula is a rare disease and MRI is a promising technique that may be useful to demonstrate the coronary artery tree. We report three patients who underwent cardiac MRI to investigate right coronary artery fistulae. On clinical examination, a continuous murmur was heard along the left sternal border, and chest X-ray showed moderate cardiomegaly with enlargement of right chambers in all patients. Transthoracic Doppler echocardiography showed fistulae in two cases; the third case was not demonstrated by transthoracic or transoesophageal echocardiography. MRI demonstrated the course of the fistulous vessels in all patients. All patients underwent surgical closure of their coronary artery fistulae. MRI may show detailed anatomy of congenital coronary artery fistulae and may be useful as an additional non-invasive method in their investigation.
