Dynamic-Computed Tomography Angiography for Cerebral Vessel Templates and Segmentation

TL;DR

This study develops and evaluates two vessel segmentation methods on dynamic CTA images, creating the first angiographic CT templates and demonstrating deep learning's superior accuracy over atlas-based models.

Contribution

Introduces the first angiographic CT templates and compares deep learning with atlas-based segmentation for cerebral vessels using 4D-CTA.

Findings

Deep learning outperforms atlas-based segmentation in accuracy.

DL achieved an average modified dice coefficient of 0.856 for arteries.

Atlas-based methods had significantly lower accuracy, especially for smaller vessels.

Abstract

Background: Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA) is crucial for cerebrovascular disease diagnosis. Dynamic CTA is a type of imaging that captures temporal information about the We aim to develop and evaluate two segmentation techniques to segment vessels directly on CTA images: (1) creating and registering population-averaged vessel atlases and (2) using deep learning (DL). Methods: We retrieved 4D-CT of the head from our institutional research database, with bone and soft tissue subtracted from post-contrast images. An Advanced Normalization Tools pipeline was used to create angiographic atlases from 25 patients. Then, atlas-driven ROIs were identified by a CT attenuation threshold to generate segmentation of the arteries and veins using non-linear registration. To create DL vessel segmentations, arterial and venous structures were segmented using the MRA vessel segmentation tool, iCafe, in 29 patients. These were then used to train a DL model, with bone-in CT images as input. Multiple phase images in the 4D-CT were used to increase the training and validation dataset. Both segmentation approaches were evaluated on a test 4D-CT dataset of 11 patients which were also processed by iCafe and validated by a neuroradiologist. Specifically, branch-wise segmentation accuracy was quantified with 20 labels for arteries and one for veins. DL outperformed the atlas-based segmentation models for arteries (average modified dice coefficient (amDC) 0.856 vs. 0.324) and veins (amDC 0.743 vs. 0.495) overall. For ICAs, vertebral and basilar arteries, DL and atlas -based segmentation had an amDC of 0.913 and 0.402, respectively. The amDC for MCA-M1, PCA-P1, and ACA-A1 segments were 0.932 and 0.474, respectively. Conclusion: Angiographic CT templates are developed for the first time in literature. Using 4D-CTA enables the use of tools like iCafe, lessening the burden of manual annotation.