Measuring Aortic Wall Thickness
Arteriosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries, is caused by the build up of fatty deposits and calcium in vessel walls. Arteriosclerosis is a common disease may and cause circulation problems, aneurysms, heart attack, coronary artery disease, stroke or transient ischemic attack. The goal of this research is to develop an automated method of looking at arthrosclerosis by measuring vessel wall thickness using Computed Tomography (CT).
Figure 1. Cropped CT scan of the abdomen, showing where the aorta is located.
Figure 2. Cropped CT scan of the abdomen showing the inner and outer walls of the aorta in blue and red
Figure 3. Inner and outer wall locations generated by the program stacked on top of one another to create a 3-D representation of the vessel.