Automatic vessel identification for angiographic screening

摘要

A magnetic resonance angiographic method includes acquiring (70) high resolution volume image data comprising data (74) corresponding to a plurality of high resolution image slices, and acquiring (72) data corresponding to at least one vessel identification image slice (76), said acquired data having selectively enhanced contrast for one of arteries and veins. A high resolution volume image representation (80) is reconstructed from the acquired high resolution volume image data (74). At least one vessel identification slice image representation (82) is reconstructed from the acquired data corresponding to at least one vessel identification image slice (76). At least one of an artery starting point (86) and a vein starting point (88) is identified based on the vessel identification slice image representation (82). Preferably, the method further includes defining (124) an initial surface that encloses the at least one starting point (126), and iteratively growing (128) the initial surface (126) until the surface essentially coincides with the boundaries of the vascular system.