Patent ID: 8131032
Filing Date: 2012-03-06
Classification: A61B,G06T

Abstract:
1. An apparatus configured to detect lumen-intima and media-adventitia interfaces in a blood vessel comprising: a means for aquiring a two-dimensional cross-sectional representation of said blood vessel, said two-dimensional representation being obtained as a grey level image, said acquisition means arranged to define in said image a region of interest (ROI) which includes said lumen-intima interface and said media-adventitia interface of said vessel, said region of interest consisting of a grey level map f(n, m) of said representation, being n and m coordinates of each pixel of said two-dimensional representation, a means for executing, along a search path (i) (with i=1 . . . N) in said region of interest that is substantially orthogonal to a wall of said vessel where the following operations are executed: detection of any discontinuity points by means of filtering said values f(n, m) along said path (i) and localization of said points, definition along said path of a first discontinuity point P repeating the acquisition, filtering and definition operations for a number N of rectilinear search paths (i) in the above described region of interest (ROI): detection of said lumen-intima interface by means of interpolation of a set α of said points P detection of said media-adventitia interface by means of interpolation of a set β of said points P wherein said step of detection of said discontinuity points P defining local peaks of a first order absolute central moment operator calculated as: being Θ 1 and Θ 2 two circular domains having radius r 1 and r 2 respectively, defined as: where Z represents a set of whole numbers and (k defining local peaks of a gradient of Gaussian operator calculated as: where g defining zero crossings of a Laplacian of Gaussian operator calculated as: where g