A knowledge-based system for the delineation of blood vessels on subtraction angiograms

Abstract A new approach to outline blood vessels on angiograms is described, based on a generic blood vessel model and four models for determining segment intersections. These models are generic in the sense that they only rely on the angiographic imaging technique and on the geometrical and topological properties of blood vessels. The models do not depend on specific anatomical knowledge. As a consequence, they can be used as an initial segmentation step to outline the coronary, cerebral as well as the carotid vessels. Results on clinical cerebral subtraction angiograms are presented.