Title: Intima-media thickness estimation by back propagation algorithm

Authors: V. Savithri; S. Purushothaman

Addresses: Computer Science Department, D.R.B.C.C.C. Hindu College, Pattabiram, Chennai-72, India ' Udaya School of Engineering, Kanyakumari District, 629204, India

Abstract: Intima-media thickness (IMT) is a well-known indicator of the physical properties of carotid artery in vascular disease examinations. In the present study, two different image segmentation techniques, based on edge detection and dynamic programming algorithms, were examined to extract the boundary of intima-media thickness. The results of these two methods were compared using back propagation algorithm. The features like area, shape, intensity, size of internal diameter and length of segmented regions traced by edge detection algorithm were compared with the same parameters traced by the dynamic programming algorithm. In conclusion, both these methodologies provide a reliable tool to detect the intima-media thickness in ultrasound images and can be used efficiently as secondary observer in clinical decision making.

Keywords: ultrasound images; medical imaging; image processing; feature extraction; edge detection; intima-media thickness; carotid artery; vascular disease; image segmentation; dynamic programming.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCONVC.2013.054656

International Journal of Convergence Computing, 2013 Vol.1 No.1, pp.3 - 18

Received: 16 Mar 2012
Accepted: 03 Apr 2012
Published online: 19 Jul 2014 *

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