Phase contrast MRI segmentation using velocity and intensity

Abstract

This paper presents a method for three-dimensional (3D) segmentation of blood vessels, i.e. determining the surface of the vessel wall, using a combination of velocity data and magnitude images obtained using phase contrast MRI. In addition to standard MRI images, phase contrast MRI gives velocity information for blood and tissue in the human body. The proposed method uses a variational formulation of the segmentation problem which combines different cues; velocity and magnitude. The segmentation is performed using the level set method. Experiments on phantom data and clinical data support the proposed method. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.