Towards fully automated tracking of carotid and vertebral arteries in CT angiography

Abstract

This paper presents an approach towards fully automated vessel tracking and segmentation in computed tomographic (CT) images. The proposed algorithm operates in 3D and is fast enough for interactive usage once preprocessing has been done. This approach focuses on vessel segmentation in the neck region, particularly the carotid arteries. Especially, potential apoplectic stroke patients can benefit from this approach due to the automatic visualization of the carotid arteries.