Abstract
A clear digital image with high resolution of blood vessels by using a CT angiography or MR angiography for analyzing the blood vessels structures is easily obtained in medical field. Recently, the disease by arteriosclerosis increases rapidly. Especially, the one that originates in hands and feet's peripheral arterial is called arteriosclerosis obliterans (ASO). In order to diagnose the ASO using a contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applied as a useful visual screening method on the medical field. It is, however, sometimes with a contrast enhanced MRI method make burden to patients. To avoid adverse reactions from the contrast medium, a non-enhanced fresh blood imaging (FBI) method is developed. In this paper, we develop a 3-D visualization method for analyzing the internal structure such as blood vessels in the lower limbs area. To develop a visualization method, we propose a technique for extracting the blood vessels region by use of region growing method which obtained the maximum intensity projection image. This technique was applied to four non-enhanced FBI MR imaging, and satisfactory 3D blood vessel region was extracted. Some experimental results are shown with discussion.
