Overview image of the lumen and vessel wall in coronary CT angiography.
BACKGROUND
There is no post-processing technique that can display an overview image of the lumen and vessel wall of a whole heart in one image. A merging coronary lumen view (Angiographic View) with a plaque image can provide a single, comprehensive image of plaque distribution.


RESULTS
A color-coded plaque image is assigned to different computed tomography attenuation ranges in the coronary artery to visualize plaques. This plaque image is re-formatted into a maximum intensity projection image and loaded onto the Angiographic View image.


CONCLUSIONS
The integrated image of the coronary lumen and vessel wall of a whole heart is feasible. This image (Plaque-loaded Angiographic View) will give effective information in explaining the distribution of coronary lesions in patients as well as providing opportunities to discuss treatment strategies.
Jinzaki
Masahiro
M
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Keio University School of Medicine, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan. jinzaki@sc.itc.keio.ac.jp
Yamada
Minoru
M
Sato
Kozo
K
Tanami
Yutaka
Y
Anzai
Toshihisa
T
Sasaki
Kosuke
K
Kuribayashi
Sachio
S
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D023921:Coronary Stenosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D012984:Software; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*