Blood Flow Determination From Fluoroscopic Image Sequences

In this paper a method to quantitate blood flow from contrast injections into a vessel was evaluated using a straight tube, constant flow phantom. Grey scale values integrated over multiple regions-of-interest (ROI), placed contiguously along a "vessel" segment, were used to generate multiple time-density curves. Temporal shifts in the time-density curves for each ROI were determined using a cross-correlation technique. Regional volume estimates were made using a curve fitting approach. Linear regression of the regional volume and temporal shift estimates was used to estimate flow within the vessel segment. Velocity estimates were made in a similar way. Currently, velocity estimations are significantly better than flow estimations. Errors in the diameter estimates remain as the main cause of flow inaccuracies.