Multi-Modality Atherosclerosis Imaging and Diagnosis

The goal of Multi-Modality Atherosclerosis Imaging, Diagnosis and Treatment is to fuse information obtained from different 3D medical image modalities, such as 3D US, CT and MRI, providing the medical doctor with some sort of augmented reality information about the atherosclerotic plaque in order to improve the accuracy of the diagnosis. Analysis of the plaque dynamics along the cardiac cycle is also a valuable indicator for plaque instability assessment and therefore for risk stratification. 4D Ultrasound, a sequence of 3D reconstructions of the region of interest along the time, can be used for this dynamic analysis. Multimodality Image Fusion is a very appealing approach because it puts together the best characteristics of each modality, such as, the high temporal resolution of US and the high spatial resolutions of MRI and CT.