title: Development and testing of a cross-sectional area measurement tool for evaluating vein size.
abstract: This paper describes a software system for measuring cross-sectional area in reconstructed elliptical tubular structures. A measurement tool was developed using the freely available, cross-platform, open-source three-dimensional (3-D) Slicer environment. The software is easy to operate and allows the user to make multiple measurements on the fly. Results can be displayed to the screen, output to the system printer, and written to a user-specified data file for later analysis in commercial spreadsheet software. Measuring a known cross-sectional area tested the software. Phantoms of known physical dimensions were imaged using both CT and MR. The measured cross-sectional areas reported by the software were compared to each other, and the cross-sectional areas calculated from the known physical dimensions of the phantoms. The measurement errors were negligible. The results of this study indicate that the cross-sectional area measurement tool described provides reliable measurements and is an inexpensive and versatile alternative to high-end 3-D modeling software.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA. bddavison@partners.org
authors.forename: Brian D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Davison
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yeshwant
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kikinis
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rolnick
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: E K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Yucel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D010690:Phlebography; D012984:Software; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014680:Veins / Q000033:anatomy & histology*