Method and system for simultaneous evaluation of airway wall density and airway wall inflammation
A method of evaluating airway wall density and inflammation including: segmenting a bronchial tree to create an airway wall map; for each branch, taking a set of locations that form the wall of each branch from the map and sampling the value in a virtual non-contrast image of the bronchial tree and, given a set of samples of pre-contrast densities, computing a value to yield a bronchial wall density for each branch to yield density measures; for each branch, taking the set of locations that form the wall of each branch from the map and sampling the value in a contrast agent map of the bronchial tree and, given the set of samples of contrast agent intake, computing a value to yield a bronchial wall uptake for each branch to yield inflammation measures; and using the density and inflammation measures to determine treatment or predict outcome for a patient.
1. A method of evaluating airway wall density, the method comprising:
providing executable instructions to a processor that when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform the steps of:
acquiring a simultaneous dual-energy image data of at least a portion of a patient's airway after injection of a contract agent into the patient;
segmenting a bronchial tree into a branch or a set of branches, from the dual-energy image data to create an airway wall map that indicates for each element in the airway wall map whether it is part of an airway or not;
computing a virtual non-contrast agent volume map and a contrast agent volume map from the dual-energy image data;
for each branch or each set of branches, taking a set of locations that form the wall of the airway wall map;
sampling a value in the virtual non-contrast agent volume map representing a second set of locations corresponding to at least a portion of the set of locations;
determining a pre-contrast density at each sampled value;
computing a first bronchial wall density for each branch or each set of branches to yield density measures;
for each branch or each set of branches, sampling a value in the contrast agent volume map at the second set of locations;
determining a set of contrast agent intake samples from the contract agent volume sampled values;
computing a value to yield a bronchial wall uptake for each branch or each set of branches to yield inflammation measures; and
determining one or more of patient disease severity, optimal treatment protocol, and prognosis using the density measures and inflammation.
2. The method of claim 1 , showing for each voxel of the contrast agent volume map a computed amount of contrast agent present at a corresponding location in the patient's body.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising visualizing wall density or inflammation in a rendering of the bronchial tree.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the wall density or inflammation is color coded on the rendered bronchial tree.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the contrast agent includes iodine.
6. A system for evaluating airway wall density, the system comprising:
a central processor unit including a processor in communication with a memory and an input/output interface;
the memory including executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
acquiring a simultaneous dual-energy image data of at least a portion of a patient's airway after injection of a contract agent into the patient;
segmenting a bronchial tree into a branch or a set of branches, from the dual-energy image data to create an airway wall map that indicates for each element in the airway wall map whether it is part of an airway or not;
computing a virtual non-contrast agent volume map and a contrast agent volume map from the dual-energy image data;
for each branch or each set of branches, taking a set of locations that form the wall of the airway wall map;
sampling a value in the virtual non-contrast agent volume map representing a second set of locations corresponding to at least a portion of the set of locations;
determining a pre-contrast density at each sampled value;
computing a first bronchial wall density for each branch or each set of branches to yield density measures;
for each branch or each set of branches, sampling a value in the contrast agent volume map at the second set of locations;
determining a set of contrast agent intake samples from the contract agent volume sampled values;
computing a value to yield a bronchial wall uptake for each branch or each set of branches to yield inflammation measures; and
determining one or more of patient disease severity, optimal treatment protocol, and prognosis using the density measures and inflammation.
7. The system of claim 6 , the executable instructions causing the processor to include in each voxel of the contrast agent volume map, a computed amount of contrast agent present at a corresponding location in the patient's body.
8. The system of claim 6 , the executable instructions causing the processor to visualize wall density or inflammation in a rendering of the bronchial tree.
9. The system of claim 6 , the executable instructions causing the processor to color code the wall density or inflammation on the rendered bronchial tree.