Resliced image space construction for coronary artery collagen fibers

Collagen fibers play an important role in the biomechanics of the blood vessel wall. The objective of this study was to determine the 3D microstructure of collagen fibers in the media and adventitia of coronary arteries. We present a novel optimal angle consistence algorithm to reform image slices in the visualization and analysis of 3D collagen images. 3D geometry was reconstructed from resliced image space where the 3D skeleton was extracted as the primary feature for accurate reconstruction of geometrical parameters. Collagen fibers (range 80–200) were reconstructed from the porcine coronary artery wall for the measurement of various morphological parameters. Collagen waviness and diameters were 1.37 ± 0.19 and 2.61 ± 0.89 μm, respectively. The biaxial distributions of orientation had two different peaks at 110.7 ± 25.2° and 18.4 ± 19.3°. Results for width, waviness, and orientation were found to be in good agreement with manual measurements. In addition to accurately measuring 2D features more efficiently than the manual approach, the present method produced 3D features that could not be measured in the 2D manual approach. These additional parameters included the tilt angle (5.10 ± 2.95°) and cross-sectional area (CSA; 5.98 ± 3.79 μm2) of collagen fibers. These 3D collagen reconstructions provide accurate and reliable microstructure for biomechanical modeling of vessel wall mechanics.