There is an ongoing debate about whether hard plaques (in particular calcified lesions) are associated with constrictive or expansive remodeling. Previous intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) studies of stenoses with significant lumen narrowing that were targets for percutaneous coronary interventions 1 Mintz G.S. Kent K.M. Pichard A.D. Satler L.F. Popma J.J. Leon M.B. Contribution of inadequate arterial remodeling to the development of focal coronary artery stenoses an intravascular ultrasound study. Circulation. 1997; 95: 1791-1798 Crossref PubMed Scopus (304) Google Scholar , 2 Tauth J. Pinnow E. Sullebarger J.T. Basta L. Gursoy S. Lindsay Jr, J. Matar F. Predictors of coronary arterial remodeling patterns in patients with myocardial ischemia. Am J Cardiol. 1996; 80: 1352-1355 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (93) Google Scholar , 3 Weissman N.J. Sheris S.J. Chari R. Mendelsohn F.O. Anderson W.D. Breall J.A. Tanguay J.F. Diver D.J. Intravascular ultrasonic analysis of plaque characteristics associated with coronary artery remodeling. Am J Cardiol. 1999; 84: 37-40 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (62) Google Scholar , 4 Fuessl R.T. Kranenberg E. Kiausch U. Baer F.M. Sechtem U. Hopp H.W. Vascular remodeling in atherosclerotic coronary arteries is affected by plaque composition. Coron Artery Dis. 2001; 12: 91-97 Crossref PubMed Scopus (31) Google Scholar , 5 Beckman J.A. Ganz J. Creager M.A. Ganz P. Kinlay S. Relationship of clinical presentation and calcification of culprit coronary artery stenosis. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2001; 21: 1618-1622 Crossref PubMed Scopus (183) Google Scholar have shown that hard plaques are typically associated with constrictive remodeling. In contrast, a recent histologic study in atherosclerotic coronary vessels with varying degrees of lumen narrowing suggested otherwise. 6 Burke A.P. Kolodgie F.D. Farb A. Weber D. Virmani R. Morphological predictors of arterial remodeling in coronary atherosclerosis. Circulation. 2002; 105: 297-303 Crossref PubMed Scopus (452) Google Scholar For that reason, we used 3-dimensional IVUS 7 von Birgelen C. de Vrey E.A. Mintz G.S. Nicosia A. Bruining N. Li W. Slager C.J. Roelandt J.R.T.C. Serruys P.W. de Feyter P.J. ECG-gated three-dimensional intravascular ultrasound feasibility and reproducibility of the automated analysis of coronary lumen and atherosclerotic plaque dimensions in humans. Circulation. 1997; 96: 2944-2952 Crossref PubMed Scopus (180) Google Scholar , 8 von Birgelen C. van der Lugt A. Nicosia A. Mintz G.S. Gussenhoven E.J. de Vrey E. Mallus M.T. Roelandt J.R.T.C. Serruys P.W. de Feyter P.J. Computerized assessment of coronary lumen and atherosclerotic plaque dimensions in three-dimensional intravascular ultrasound correlated with histomorphometry. Am J Cardiol. 1996; 78: 1202-1209 Abstract Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (67) Google Scholar to carefully examine 130 focal coronary plaques with a wide range of lumen narrowings to compare plaque composition and vascular remodeling in vivo.
Intracoronary ultrasound (ICUS) provides high-resolution transmural images of the arterial wall. By performing a pullback of the ICUS transducer and three-dimensional reconstruction of the images, an advanced assessment of the lumen and vessel wall morphology can be obtained. To reduce the analysis time and the subjectivity of boundary tracing, automated segmentation of the image sequence must be performed. The Quantitative Coronary Ultrasound – Clinical Measurement Solutions (QCU-CMS) (semi)automated analytical software package uses a combination of transversal and longitudinal model and knowledge-guided contour detection techniques. On multiple longitudinal sections through the pullback stack, the external vessel contours are detected simultaneously, allowing mutual guidance of the detection in difficult areas. Subsequently, luminal contours are detected on these longitudinal sections. Vessel and luminal contour points are transformed to the individual cross-sections, where they guide the vessel and lumen contour detection on these transversal images. The performance of the software was validated stepwise. A set of phantoms was used to determine the systematic and random errors of the contour detection of external vessel and lumen boundaries. Subsequently, the results of the contour detection as obtained in in vivo image sets were compared with expert manual tracing, and finally the contour detection in in vivo image sequences was compared with results obtained from another previously validated ICUS quantification system. The phantom lumen diameters were underestimated by 0.1 mm, equally by the QCU-CMS software and by manual tracing. Comparison of automatically detected contours and expert manual contours, showed that lumen contours correspond very well (systematic and random radius difference: −0.025 ± 0.067 mm), while automatically detected vessel contours slightly overestimated the expert manual contours (radius difference: 0.061 ± 0.037 mm). The cross-sectional vessel and lumen areas as detected with our system and with the second computerized system showed a high correlation (r = 0.995 and 0.978, respectively). Thus, use of the new QCU-CMS analytical software is feasible and the validation data suggest its application for the analysis of clinical research.