CTA Quantification and Multi-modal Visualization for Assessing Coronary Artery Disease

textabstractIn cardiovascular disease, relating a coronary stenosis to a cardiac perfusion defect is of importance for selecting and planning the proper treatment. However, this is challenging owing to the high anatomical variability of the coronary arteries between patients. Anatomical and functional imaging is routinely obtained from multiple imaging modalities. The goal of the work described in this thesis is to develop and evaluate techniques to quantify cardiac and coronary geometry from computed tomography angiography (CTA), and to combine this anatomical information with functional information extracted from either perfusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or single-photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging (SPECT-MPI) to support diagnosis and therapy planning in coronary artery disease (CAD). In the remainder of this chapter, the cardiac anatomy and pathologies will be introduced (Section 1.1 and 1.2), and the imaging techniques currently used to assess coronary artery disease will be presented in Section 1.3, with a highlight on hybrid imaging. Following the introduction, an outline of this thesis is proposed in Section 1.