Automatic tracking of a tool upon a vascular roadmap

Apparatus, comprising:

• a tool configured to be inserted into a blood vessel of a portion of a body of a subject;
• a display;
• and
• at least one processor, comprising:
• road-map-generation functionality configured to generate a road map of the blood vessel in the portion of the subject's body;
• feature-identifying functionality configured to identify, in the road map, a given feature that is within the portion of the subject's body, the given feature being visible even in images of the portion the generation of which does not include use of a contrast agent;
• tool-location functionality configured to determine a current location of at least a portion of the tool with respect to the given feature, based on a current image of the tool and the feature;
• tool-positioning functionality configured, in response to the determined current location of the tool, to determine a current position of the tool within the road map;
• and
• display-driving functionality configured, in response to determining the current position of the tool within the road map, to drive the display to display the current position of the tool with respect to the road map.

A method, comprising:

• generating a road map of a blood vessel in a portion of a body of a subject;
• identifying, in the road map, a given feature that is within the portion of the subject's body, the given feature being visible even in images of the portion the generation of which does not include use of a contrast agent;
• generating an image stream of the blood vessel;
• identifying the given feature in the image stream;
• registering the road map to the image stream using the identified feature;
• and
• in response to the registration of the road map to the image stream, overlaying the road map on the image stream.

Apparatus, comprising:

• a tool configured to be inserted into a blood vessel of a portion of a body of a subject;
• an image-acquisition device configured to acquire an image stream of the blood vessel;
• a display;
• and
• at least one processor, comprising:
• image-receiving functionality configured to receive the image stream into the processor;
• road-map-generation functionality configured to generate a road map of the blood vessel in the portion of the subject's body;
• road-map-feature-identifying functionality configured to identify, in the road map, a given feature that is within the portion of the subject's body, the given feature being visible even in images of the portion the generation of which does not include use of a contrast agent;
• image-stream-feature-identifying functionality configured to identify the feature in the image stream;
• registration-functionality configured to register the road map to the image stream using the identified feature;
• and
• display-driving functionality configured, in response to the registration of the road map to the image stream, to drive the display to overlay the road map on the image stream.

A method for imaging a portion of a body of a subject that moves as a result of cardiac cyclic activity of the subject and that also undergoes additional motion that is at least partially a result of a respiratory cycle of the subject, the method comprising:

• identifying a given phase of the cardiac cyclic activity;
• generating a stabilized set of image frames of the portion of the subject's body
• by outputting a set of image frames corresponding to image frames of the portion acquired during the given phase, and
• by image tracking at least the set of image frames to reduce imaged motion of the portion of the subject's body associated with the additional motion;
• and
• displaying the tracked set of image frames of the portion of the subject's body.