@conference{10902/10051,
year = {2015},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10902/10051},
abstract = {Degradation of the wall of human ascending thoracic aorta has been assessed through Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). OCT images of the media layer of the aortic wall exhibit micro-structure degradation in case of diseased aortas from aneurysmal vessels or in aortas prone to aortic dissections. The degeneration in vessel walls appears as low-reflectivity areas due to the invasive appearance of acidic polysaccharides and mucopolysaccharides within a typical ordered microstructure of parallel lamellae of smooth muscle cells, elastin and collagen fibers. An OCT indicator of wall degradation can be generated upon the spatial quantification of the extension of degraded areas in a similar way as conventional histopathology. This proposed OCT marker offers a real-time clinical insight of the vessel status to help cardiovascular surgeons in vessel repair interventions. However, the delineation of degraded areas on the B-scan image from OCT is sometimes difficult due to presence of speckle noise, variable SNR conditions on the measurement process, etc. Degraded areas could be outlined by basic thresholding techniques taking advantage of disorders evidences in B-scan images, but this delineation is not always optimum and requires complex additional processing stages. This work proposes an optimized delineation of degraded spots in vessel walls, robust to noisy environments, based on the analysis of the second order variation of image intensity of backreflection to determine the type of local structure. Results improve the delineation of wall anomalies providing a deeper physiological perception of the vessel wall conditions. Achievements could be also transferred to other clinical scenarios: carotid arteries, aorto-iliac or ilio-femoral sections, intracranial, etc.},
organization = {This work has been supported by the Spanish Government through the CYCIT projects DA2TOI (FIS2010-19860) and FOS4 (TEC2013-47264-C2-1-R).},
publisher = {SPIE Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers},
publisher = {Proceedings of SPIE, 2015, 9312,  931233},
publisher = {Optical Coherence Tomography and Coherence Domain Optical Methods in Biomedicine XIX, San Francisco, 2015},
title = {Enhanced delineation of degradation in aortic walls through OCT},
author = {Real Peña, Eusebio and Val Bernal, José Fernando and Revuelta Soba, José Manuel and Pontón Cortina, Alejandro and Calvo Díez, Marta and Mayorga Fernández, Marta María and López Higuera, José Miguel and Conde Portilla, Olga María},
}