Harmonic skeleton guided evaluation of stenoses in human coronary arteries.
This paper presents a novel approach that three-dimensionally visualizes and evaluates stenoses in human coronary arteries by using harmonic skeletons. A harmonic skeleton is the center line of a multi-branched tubular surface extracted based on a harmonic function, which is the solution of the Laplace equation. This skeletonization method guarantees smoothness and connectivity and provides a fast and straightforward way to calculate local cross-sectional areas of the arteries, and thus provides the possibility to localize and evaluate coronary artery stenosis, which is a commonly seen pathology in coronary artery disease.
Yang
Yan
Y
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. gtg929i@mail.gatech.edu
Zhu
Lei
L
Haker
Steven
S
Tannenbaum
Allen R
AR
Giddens
Don P
DP