Patent ID: 9355474
Filing Date: 2016-05-31
CPC Classification: A61B,F04C,G06T

Claim Text:
1. A semiautomatic method of processing intravascular Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images, comprising: receiving in a computer a primary cross-sectional OCT image visualising a section of a blood vessel having a lumen and a vessel wall; pre-processing the primary image by the computer, wherein the pre-processing step comprises segmenting a guide wire in the lumen and excluding the guide wire from the primary image to obtain a pre-processed image; determining whether the lumen is closed; if the lumen is determined to be closed, performing a first automatic lumen segmentation procedure on the pre-processed image to define a perimeter line of the lumen, corresponding to the inner edge of the vessel wall, and determine a centroid C if the lumen is determined not to be closed, sequentially performing an automatic lumen closing procedure on the pre-processed image, and a second automatic lumen segmentation procedure, to define a perimeter line of the lumen, corresponding to the inner edge of the vessel wall, and determine a centroid C automatically finding an outer edge of the vessel wall and defining a first region of interest ROI automatically segmenting a fibrous plaque in the first region of interest ROI segmenting a hyporeflective plaque, contained in a radial region that falls within ROI