Visualization of plaque distribution in a curved artery: three-dimensional intravascular ultrasound imaging

Abstract

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging provides an excellent tool for evaluation of the type, morphology, extent, and severity of an atheromatous plaque. 3 D IVUS imaging offers additive information pertaining to morphology of the arterial structures and volumetric plaque distributions. A new 3 D IVUS visualization technique was developed to provide 3 D structural information of a curved artery. A virtual 3 D curved arterial phantom consisting of varying cross-sectional shapes, wall thicknesses, and acoustic intensity information was utilized to validate the nonlinear interpolation technique to create intermediary 2 D IVUS images. IVUS imaging was performed for the iliofemoral arterial segment of an atherosclerotic Yucatan miniswine model. These in-vivo IVUS data were utilized for intermediary IVUS image generation and volumetric 3 D IVUS visualization. Smooth transitional changes of cross-sectional shape, wall thickness and grayscale intensity were found between the intermediary images and the original arterial phantom slices. The 3 D IVUS imaging of the unfolded curved iliofemoral artery provided realistic 3 D luminal surface images of the arteries with physiologic grayscale intensity information. This unique 3 D IVUS imaging technique may help with assessment of 3 D plaque distribution across the curved arterial structure, and improve 3 D visualization of atheromatous components.

Keywords:

• Curved artery
• intravascular ultrasound
• image reconstruction
• three-dimensional

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was in part supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (NRF-2016R1A2B4012025).