Image based diameter measurement and aneurysm detection of the ascending aorta

Abstract

Thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) is the enlargement of the aorta that needs surgical treatment. Radiologists measure the diameter of the aorta manually using a software ruler. Manual measurements may cause human errors which reduce accuracy of the results. Image processing techniques have been successful in analysing medical images and have been used on biomedical imaging applications. We proposed a novel system that measures the diameter of the ascending aorta using CT thorax (chest) images without considering other aorta-like shape. In this study, image processing techniques were used on these images to detect the aorta from series of slices and to calculate the diameter of the aorta. The axial plane has been used in these CT thorax scans. In this analysis, 20 patients were studied. In this research, the objective was on the measurement of the ascending aorta, this is because the majority of the thoracic aortic aneurysm’s which tend to be in the ascending aorta. On the analysed data, for the diameter of the ascending aorta measurements average of 2.3% (0.9 mm) difference was obtained between the manual measurements and the values measured by the system. This system can also provide online support to developing countries where there are not enough radiologists to analyse CT scans.