3D cylindrical B-spline segmentation of carotid arteries from MRI images

The paper presents a segmentation method based on 3D cylindrical B-spline model. Proposed method was applied to 5 patient MRA studies of carotid arteries and 1 phantom dataset. Carotid bifurcation was segmented as two independent, overlapping branches. The presented method was evaluated against observer drawn contours and phantom model. Statistical assessment of vessel lumen area showed 10.4% systematic underestimation and good precision (SD = 9.2 vs. SDinterobs= 11.8) of presented method in comparison to the observer's results