title: Quantitative analysis of the fine vascular anatomy of articular ligaments.
abstract: An image analysis technique has been developed to quantitatively describe the fine vascular patterns observed in ligament tissue. The longitudinal orientational distribution and total vessel volume of India-ink-perfused blood vessel segments in normal and healing ligaments were determined. The methods involved special vascular preparation of adult rabbit knee medial collateral ligaments (MCL) by India-ink perfusion. Black and white microscope images of ink-perfused tissue sections were subjected to a thresholding procedure to binarize digitized ligament images, which were then skeletonized and analyzed for directional distribution based on the least-squares technique. Analysis of medial collateral ligaments in New Zealand White rabbits using this method has shown that scarred tissue is more vascular and has a more chaotic angular distribution of blood-vessel segments than normal ligament tissue.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Eng
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Rangayyan
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Bray
authors.forename: C B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Frank
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Anscomb
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Veale
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D007719:Knee Joint; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D008023:Ligaments, Articular / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000293:injuries; D011817:Rabbits; D012016:Reference Values; D014945:Wound Healing / Q000502:physiology