Automated assessment of bronchial lumen, wall thickness and bronchoarterial diameter ratio of the tracheobronchial tree using high-resolution CT

Abstract Asthma, bronchiectasis, emphysema, and other pulmonary diseases are often correlated with the clinical parameters of bronchial lumen, wall thickness, and the ratio of inner bronchial to accompanying arterial diameter. Measurement of these clinical parameters is time-consuming and relies on a sparse sampling of manual, often 2D-in-slice measurements. In this paper we want to show the technical feasibility of unsupervised extraction of the whole tracheobronchial tree with automatic quantification of the clinical parameters at all points along the bronchial centerlines. The procedure is completely unsupervised and promises a more reproducible and faster assessment of the patient's airway structure and function.