title: Model-based vasculature extraction from optical fluorescence cryomicrotome images.
abstract: The aim of this study was to develop a novel method to reconstruct 3-D coronary vasculature from cryomicrotome images, comprised of two distinct sets of data-fluorescent microsphere beads and coronary vasculature. Fluorescent beads and cast injected into the vasculature were separately imaged with different filter settings to obtain the microsphere and vascular data, respectively. To extract the vascular anatomy, light scattering in the tissue was modelled using a point spread function (PSF). The PSF was parametrized by optical tissue excitation and emission attenuation coefficients, which were estimated by fitting simulated images of microspheres convolved with the PSF model to the experimental microsphere images. These parameters were then applied within a new model-based method for vessel radius estimation. Current state-of-the-art radii estimation methods and the proposed model-based method were applied on vessel phantoms. In this validation study, the full-width half-maximum method of radii estimation, when performed on the raw data without correcting for the optical blurring, resulted in 42.9% error on average for the  170 μm  vessel. In comparison, the model-based method resulted in 0.6% error on average for the same phantom. Whole-organ porcine coronary vasculature was automatically reconstructed with the new model-based vascular extraction method.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Oxford University, Oxford, UK. ayush.goyal@cs.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: Ayush
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Goyal
authors.forename: Jack
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lamata
authors.forename: Jeroen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van den Wijngaard
authors.forename: Pepijn
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: van Horssen
authors.forename: Jos
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Spaan
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Siebes
authors.forename: Vicente
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Grau
authors.forename: Nic P
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D016616:Cryoultramicrotomy / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008863:Microspheres; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013552:Swine