Vessel enhancement filtering in three-dimensional MR angiograms using long-range signal correlation.
Small vessels in three-dimensional MR angiograms have low visibility in maximum-intensity projection images because of their low contrast. In a previous study, we had two nonlinear filters that appeared to give significant improvement in small vessel detail. In this paper, we report on a generalization of this filter that allows a more general modeling of the vessels and a more complete suppression of background. One implementation of the general filter gave a vessel mean contrast-to-noise ratio that is 2.52 and 3.51 times higher than the vessel mean contrast-to-noise ratio obtained using our previously reported maximum-minimum (max-min) filter and cross-section filter, respectively.
Du
Y P
YP
Department of Radiology, University of Utah Health Sciences Center, Salt Lake City 84132, USA.
Parker
D L
DL
D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D002941:Circle of Willis / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D012016:Reference Values; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity