Merouche S, Allard L, Montagnon E, Soulez G, Bigras P, Cloutier G. A Robotic Ultrasound Scanner for Automatic Vessel Tracking and Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of B-Mode Images.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS, FERROELECTRICS, AND FREQUENCY CONTROL 2016;
63:35-46. [PMID:
26571522 DOI:
10.1109/tuffc.2015.2499084]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Locating and evaluating the length and severity of a stenosis is very important for planning adequate treatment of peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Conventional ultrasound (US) examination cannot provide maps of entire lower limb arteries in 3-D. We propose a prototype 3D-US robotic system with B-mode images, which is nonionizing, noninvasive, and is able to track and reconstruct a continuous segment of the lower limb arterial tree between the groin and the knee. From an initialized cross-sectional view of the vessel, automatic tracking was conducted followed by 3D-US reconstructions evaluated using Hausdorff distance, cross-sectional area, and stenosis severity in comparison with 3-D reconstructions with computed tomography angiography (CTA). A mean Hausdorff distance of 0.97 ± 0.46 mm was found in vitro for 3D-US compared with 3D-CTA vessel representations. To evaluate the stenosis severity in vitro, 3D-US reconstructions gave errors of 3%-6% when compared with designed dimensions of the phantom, which are comparable to 3D-CTA reconstructions, with 4%-13% errors. The in vivo system's feasibility to reconstruct a normal femoral artery segment of a volunteer was also investigated. These results encourage further ergonomic developments to increase the robot's capacity to represent lower limb vessels in the clinical context.
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