Study of patient specific vascular modeling method considering its zero-pressure state

Abstract

Medical Images such as MRI and CT can reproduce in-vivo configuration of an artery not in zero-pressure state (ZPS) but in physiological blood pressure. To determine the geometry of a patient-specific artery in zero-pressure state is important for structural analyses of arterial wall. Thus, we propose a new method for ZPS estimation of patient specific artery. The local diameter of an arterial cross section in the zero-pressure state is estimated using our proposing ZPS estimation method by applying negative pressure. The reduction rate of the vessel diameter is obtained for various diameters. Based on the relation between in-vivo diameter and the reduction rate, a medical image-based geometry model is shrunk toward the axial center line of the artery. We found that the ZPS-estimated model could reconstruct the cross section area of the original medical image at the physiological pressure, but some difficulties on the estimation of the bifurcation geometry due to the non-circular cross sectional shape. For better estimation of a bifurcation, the interpolation function should be modified.