title: Atherosclerotic plaque tissue characterization in 2D ultrasound longitudinal carotid scans for automated classification: a paradigm for stroke risk assessment.
abstract: In the case of carotid atherosclerosis, to avoid unnecessary surgeries in asymptomatic patients, it is necessary to develop a technique to effectively differentiate symptomatic and asymptomatic plaques. In this paper, we have presented a data mining framework that characterizes the textural differences in these two classes using several grayscale features based on a novel combination of trace transform and fuzzy texture. The features extracted from the delineated plaque regions in B-mode ultrasound images were used to train several classifiers in order to prepare them for classification of new test plaques. Our CAD system was evaluated using two different databases consisting of 146 (44 symptomatic to 102 asymptomatic) and 346 (196 symptomatic and 150 asymptomatic) images. Both these databases differ in the way the ground truth was determined. We obtained classification accuracies of 93.1 and 85.3 %, respectively. The techniques are low cost, easily implementable, objective, and non-invasive. For more objective analysis, we have also developed novel integrated indices using a combination of significant features.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Clementi, Singapore. aru@np.edu.sg
authors.forename: U Rajendra
authors.initials: UR
authors.lastname: Acharya
authors.forename: Muthu Rama Krishnan
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Mookiah
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vinitha Sree
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Afonso
authors.forename: Joao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sanches
authors.forename: Shoaib
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shafique
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nicolaides
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Pedro
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fernandes E Fernandes
authors.forename: Jasjit S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Suri
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002340:Carotid Artery Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D017536:Carotid Artery, Common / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D017143:Fuzzy Logic; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D058226:Plaque, Atherosclerotic / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D020521:Stroke / Q000209:etiology*; D018615:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Color / Q000379:methods