1. Cardiac fiber tracking on super high-resolution CT images: a comparative study
- Author
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Yuji Narita, Masami Ando, Tetsuya Yuasa, Shu Ichihara, Toshiaki Akita, Daisuke Shimao, Hirohisa Oda, Kensaku Mori, Noriko Usami, Takaaki Sugino, Masahiro Oda, Holger R. Roth, and Naoki Sunaguchi
- Subjects
Paper ,microtomography ,Modality (human–computer interaction) ,Cardiac fiber ,business.industry ,heart staining protocols ,high-resolution cardiac imaging ,High resolution ,Biomedical Applications in Molecular, Structural, and Functional Imaging ,Tracking (particle physics) ,030218 nuclear medicine & medical imaging ,Image stitching ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Soft tissue contrast ,fine anatomical structure analysis ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Medicine ,Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and imaging ,Fiber ,business ,Cardiac imaging ,Biomedical engineering - Abstract
Purpose: High-resolution cardiac imaging and fiber analysis methods are required to understand cardiac anatomy. Although refraction-contrast x-ray CT (RCT) has high soft tissue contrast, it cannot be commonly used because it requires a synchrotron system. Microfocus x-ray CT (μCT) is another commercially available imaging modality. Approach: We evaluate the usefulness of μCT for analyzing fibers by quantitatively and objectively comparing the results with RCT. To do so, we scanned a rabbit heart by both modalities with our original protocol of prepared materials and compared their image-based analysis results, including fiber orientation estimation and fiber tracking. Results: Fiber orientations estimated by two modalities were closely resembled under the correlation coefficient of 0.63. Tracked fibers from both modalities matched well the anatomical knowledge that fiber orientations are different inside and outside of the left ventricle. However, the μCT volume caused incorrect tracking around the boundaries caused by stitching scanning. Conclusions: Our experimental results demonstrated that μCT scanning can be used for cardiac fiber analysis, although further investigation is required in the differences of fiber analysis results on RCT and μCT.
- Published
- 2020