Accurate analysis of blood vessel sizes and stenotic lesions using stereoscopic DSA system

Abstract

We have developed a technique to determine accurately the magnification factor and three-dimensional orientation of a vessel segment from a stereoscopic pair of digital subtraction angiograms (DSA). Our DSA system includes a stereoscopic x-ray tube with a 25-mm focal spot shift. The magnification and orientation of a selected vessel segment are determined from the distance and direction of the focal spot shift and the stereoscopic discrepancy in image positions for that segment. Our results indicate that the accuracies of determining the magnification and orientation are less than 1% and approximately 5 degrees, respectively. After the magnification and orientation are determined accurately, an iterative deconvolution technique for the measurement of vessel image size is applied to the selected vessel segment. This iterative deconvolution technique provides the best estimate of vessel image size by taking into account the unsharpness of the digital system. With this technique, the vessel image size can be determined to an accuracy of approximately 1.0 mm, which corresponds to one third the pixel size of our DSA system. Information derived from stereoscopic analysis and iterative deconvolution thus allows accurate calculation of actual vascular dimensions from DSA images.