Visualization of Myocardial Perfusion Derived from Coronary Anatomy

Visually assessing the effect of the coronary artery anatomy on the perfusion of the heart muscle in patients with coronary artery disease remains a challenging task. We explore the feasibility of visualizing this effect on perfusion using a numerical approach. We perform a computational simulation of the way blood is perfused throughout the myocardium purely based on information from a three-dimensional anatomical tomographic scan. The results are subsequently visualized using both three-dimensional visualizations and bull's eye plots, partially inspired by approaches currently common in medical practice. Our approach results in a comprehensive visualization of the coronary anatomy that compares well to visualizations commonly used for other scanning technologies. We demonstrate techniques giving detailed insight in blood supply, coronary territories and feeding coronary arteries of a selected region. We demonstrate the advantages of our approach through visualizations that show ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: TVCG
• Authors: Maurice Termeer, Javier Oliván Bescós, Marcel Breeuwer, Anna Vilanova, Frans A. Gerritsen, M. Eduard Gröller, Eike Nagel
• Keywords: Coronary Artery, Coronary Artery Anatomy, Coronary Artery Disease, TVCG 2008