New aspects in the analysis of atherosclerotic vessel wall lesions

Abstract

In the last years our group has studied the morphometry of the arterial wall after experimental atherosclerosis by automatic computer-assisted analysis. Improvements and modification of the histological procedure and the image processing system, as well as the combination of morphometric with biochemical measurements open new perspectives in the analysis of arterial wall changes, e.g. of aorta, carotids and coronary arteries. The following methods are presented: a) Manual, half-automatic, interactive and full-automatic measurement of morphometric parameters such as luminal stenosis, plaque covered surface, plaque thickness etc. on cross sections of segmented arteries. b) Three-dimensional reconstruction of the plaques. c) Automatic registration of cell density of media and plaques. d) Measurement of cholesterol content per volume unit of media or plaque.

The advantages of our methods compared with others, e.g. staining of aorta with lipophilic agents and surface evaluation, or measurement of cholesterol content per weight unit blood vessel are discussed.

Zusammenfassung

1987 erschien eine Publikation von POLIMENI und Mitarbeitern [7], in der sich die Autoren mit der manuellen computeruntersttzten Messung von Aortenquerschnitten befaten. Die bis dahin angewandten Methoden zur Bestimmung der Ausprägung atherosklerotischer Veränderungen in der Aorta waren an Longitudinalschnitten durchgeführt worden [2, 5, 9]. Unser Interesse bestand darin, die morphometrischen Messungen von Gefäßwandparametern zu automatisieren und sie mit biochemischen Methoden zu kombinieren.

Supported by the SFB 320

Mit Unterstützung durch den SFB 320