Patent ID: 11963740
Assignee: CANON U.S.A., INC.
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC A  G | IPC A  G

Claim 0:
1. An optical coherence tomography (“OCT”) system for detecting one or more lumen edges and for detecting one or more stents or stent struts and/or one or more artifacts in one or more images, the system comprising:
one or more processors that operate to:
use filtered OCT polar coordinate image data to detect one or more of the lumen edges, one or more stents or stent struts, and/or one or more artifacts in the one or more images;
detect and exclude or remove a sheath from the OCT polar coordinate image data;
find a major peak and edge in each one-dimensional (1D) data or A-line of the OCT polar coordinate image data, and use the major peak and edge to at least determine whether the major peak and edge correspond to a valid lumen edge of the one or more of the lumen edges using a local lumen edge threshold for a specific 1D data or A-line of the OCT polar coordinate image data, wherein the major peak is the maximum peak or a most significant pulse, and, in a case where the major peak and edge are confirmed to correspond to a valid lumen edge of the one or more of the lumen edges using the local lumen edge threshold and where a plurality of major peaks and edges are confirmed to correspond to one or more valid lumen edges using a respective local lumen edge threshold for each 1D data or A-line of the OCT polar coordinate image data corresponding to one or more of the plurality of major peaks and edges, identify a plurality of lumen edge points for the 1D data or for the OCT polar coordinate image data, and combine the plurality of lumen edge points to form and/or estimate the one or more valid lumen edges;
detect and remove a guide wire;
detect and process one or more stent candidates based on the major peak;
merge and extend a stent region;
calculate a shadow profile and find or confirm the stent or stent strut and/or a center of the stent or stent strut;
extract a lumen edge or edges or portions of the lumen edge or edges near a border of the lumen and the one or more stents or stent struts;
interpolate missing data or one or more parts of the extracted lumen edge or edges or of the extracted portions of the lumen edge or edges to form an additional valid lumen edge or edges and combine the additional valid lumen edge or edges with the formed and/or estimated one or more valid lumen edges to create a whole lumen curve;
find one or more embedded stents or stent struts using the whole lumen curve; and
output or store the lumen edge or edges and/or the whole lumen curve and output or store stent strut information and/or a location of the center of the stent or stent strut.