Novel Techniques for Automatically Enhanced Visualization of Coronary Arteries in MSCT Data and for Drawing Direct Comparisons to Conventional Angiography

The new generation of multi-slice computed tomography (MSCT) scanners enables the radiologist to assess the coronary arteries in a non-invasive way. The question of particular interest is whether the quality of the findings based on MSCT data can compete with the gold standard the coronary angiography. In this work we present novel automated methods for a reliable visualization of coronary arteries and for drawing direct visual side-by-side comparisons to conventional angiograms. Our approach comprises a new method for automatically extracting the heart from cardiac CT data and an advanced masking method for eliminating large cardiac cavities to obtain a better visibility of the coronary arteries in the rendered CT data. For drawing direct side-by-side comparisons we present a novel approach for simulating the conventional coronary angiography in an easy-to-handle manner. The new methods have been developed for and tested with contrast-enhanced cardiac CT datasets.