Coronary Plaque Analysis for CT Angiography Clinical Research

TL;DR

This paper presents an integrated software tool for coronary plaque analysis in CT angiography, combining automatic segmentation, manual correction, lesion annotation, and advanced tissue characterization to support clinical research and emerging technologies.

Contribution

The authors introduce a comprehensive software platform that combines robust automatic algorithms with manual editing and advanced tissue analysis features for coronary plaque research.

Findings

Effective automatic centerline and vessel wall segmentation.

Supports dual energy CT and fatty tissue quantification.

Enables detailed lesion annotation and tissue analysis.

Abstract

The analysis of plaque deposits in the coronary vasculature is an important topic in current clinical research. From a technical side mostly new algorithms for different sub tasks - e.g. centerline extraction or vessel/plaque segmentation - are proposed. However, to enable clinical research with the help of these algorithms, a software solution, which enables manual correction, comprehensive visual feedback and tissue analysis capabilities, is needed. Therefore, we want to present such an integrated software solution. It is able to perform robust automatic centerline extraction and inner and outer vessel wall segmentation, while providing easy to use manual correction tools. Also, it allows for annotation of lesions along the centerlines, which can be further analyzed regarding their tissue composition. Furthermore, it enables research in upcoming technologies and research directions: it does support dual energy CT scans with dedicated plaque analysis and the quantification of the fatty tissue surrounding the vasculature, also in automated set-ups.