论文标题
用微CT量化和可视化血管分支几何形状：内部和特性间变化的归一化
Quantifying and Visualizing Vascular Branching Geometry with Micro-CT: Normalization of Intra- and Inter-Specimen Variations
论文作者
论文摘要
表征了完整大鼠肾脏的肾动脉的微CT图像，其脉管系统注射了对比剂剂聚合物缩影。通过自动化算法方法计算了分支间段特性和血管树的层次结构的测量。不同肾脏的灌注区以及分段脉管系统的局部直径被映射到代表性结构上，并在视觉上探索。比较各种参数，以概述关键的几何特性，这些特性被证明没有广泛的特征间变化。结果表明，非对称分支中的分形缩放表现出不同于对称分支中的不同（例如，在肺中，每一代的平均支气管直径密切相关）。同样，灌注的组织被证明很少有细间变异，因此可以用于与基于血管分支几何形状的组织和器官的各种疾病状态有关的未来研究。
Micro-CT images of the renal arteries of intact rat kidneys, which had their vasculature injected with the contrast agent polymer Microfil, were characterized. Measurement of inter-branch segment properties and the hierarchical structure of the vessel trees were computed by an automated algorithmic approach. The perfusion territories of the different kidneys, as well as the local diameters of the segmented vasculature were mapped onto the representative structures and visually explored. Various parameters were compared in order to outline key geometrical properties, properties which were shown to not have a wide range of inter-specimen variation. It is shown that the fractal scaling in non-symmetric branching reveals itself differently, than in symmetric branching (e.g., in the lung the mean bronchial diameters at each generation are closely related). Also, perfused tissue is shown to have very little inter-specimen variation and therefore could be used in future studies related to characterizing various disease states of tissues and organs based on vascular branching geometry.
