title: Construction of a coronary artery atlas from CT angiography.
abstract: Describing the detailed statistical anatomy of the coronary artery tree is important for determining the aetiology of heart disease. A number of studies have investigated geometrical features and have found that these correlate with clinical outcomes, e.g. bifurcation angle with major adverse cardiac events. These methodologies were mainly two-dimensional, manual and prone to inter-observer variability, and the data commonly relates to cases already with pathology. We propose a hybrid atlasing methodology to build a population of computational models of the coronary arteries to comprehensively and accurately assess anatomy including 3D size, geometry and shape descriptors. A random sample of 122 cardiac CT scans with a calcium score of zero was segmented and analysed using a standardised protocol. The resulting atlas includes, but is not limited to, the distributions of the coronary tree in terms of angles, diameters, centrelines, principal component shape analysis and cross-sectional contours. This novel resource will facilitate the improvement of stent design and provide a reference for hemodynamic simulations, and provides a basis for large normal and pathological databases.
authors.forename: Pau
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Medrano-Gracia
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ormiston
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Webster
authors.forename: Susann
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Beier
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ellis
authors.forename: Chunliang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Alistair A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: Brett R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Cowan
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003198:Computer Simulation; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013382:Subtraction Technique; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*