A Pulmonary Artery-Vein Separation algorithm based on the relationship between sub-trees

This article presents a combined algorithm of pulmonary artery-vein (A/V) separation considering both global and local information, including: the transformation of geometric graph, sub-tree separation, and A/V classification. During the process, geometric graphs are firstly built based on the centerlines; A separation of the adhesion points is performed by applying the information stored in the data structure of the nodes and links in the geometric graphs; Sub-trees are then combined according to the local and global information; The combined sub-trees are growing into vascular trees using 2D area growth method; And finally, classification of the arterial and venous vascular trees based on the knowledge of anatomy. An average accuracy of 85% has been achieved of the overall process with a processing time range between 40 s to 50 s, which indicates good performance and stability of this algorithm.