ABSTRACT
CONTENTS 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 4.2 Physics of Black-Blood Angiography Image Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 4.3 Mask Generation Systems for Black-Blood Angiography . . . . . . . . . . . 159 4.4 Black-Blood Angiographic Filtering System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 4.5 Comparisons:Three-Dimensional Median vs. Three-Dimensional
Black-Blood Ellipsoidal Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 4.6 Implementation Issues in Black-Blood Angiography Filtering . . . . . . 180 4.7 Conclusions, Challenges and the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Vascular diseases are one of the major sources of deaths in the United States. A report [1] states that “Aneurysm rupture is not a rare occurrence as evidenced by the fact that this event currently ranks thirteenth on the list for leading causes of death in the U.S.A.” This report [1] also says that “Chronic venous insufficiency is a common problem in the U.S., affecting approximately 5% of the general population. It is estimated that half a million patients suffer from ulceration of the lower extremity as a result of longstanding venous disease.” This report raises the importance of research needed in the area of angiography, the branch of medicine that deals with veins and arteries. In the field of cerebrovascular diseases [1], “Ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke account for one of the principal causes of death and disability in older aged population. In fact, stroke currently ranks third on the list of leading causes of death in the United States (also see [2-4]). Each year approximately 500,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke in the U.S., and approximately 150,000 of them die as a result. In addition, more than one-third of stroke survivors
are left with permanent physical disability, which currently accounts for the leading cause of nursing home admissions in the U.S.”
