Segmentation of the carotid artery in ultrasound images using neural networks

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is a cardiovascular disease very widespread into population. The intima-media thickness (IMT) is a reliable early indicator of this pathology. The IMT is measured by the doctor using images acquired with a B-scan ultrasound and this fact presents several problems. Image segmentation can detect the IMT throughout the artery length in an automatic way. This paper presents an effective segmentation method based on the use of a neural network ensemble. The obtained results show the ability of the method to extract the IMT contour in ultrasound images. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.