Method and System for Non-Invasive Assessment of Coronary Artery Disease

An apparatus for non-invasive assessment of coronary artery disease based on medical image data comprising:

• means for generating an anatomical model of a coronary artery from medical image data;
• means for estimating a velocity of blood in the coronary artery based on a spatio-temporal representation of contrast agent propagation in the medical image data;
• and
• means for simulating blood flow in the anatomical model of the coronary artery using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation using the estimated velocity of the blood in the coronary artery as a boundary condition.

A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with computer executable instructions for non-invasive assessment of coronary artery disease based on medical image data, the computer executable instructions defining steps comprising:

• generating an anatomical model of a coronary artery from medical image data;
• estimating a velocity of blood in the coronary artery based on a spatio-temporal representation of contrast agent propagation in the medical image data;
• and
• simulating blood flow in the anatomical model of the coronary artery using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation using the estimated velocity of the blood in the coronary artery as a boundary condition.

A method of non-invasive assessment coronary flow reserve (CFR) using medical image data, comprising:

• receiving a first sequence of medical image data acquired during a resting state and a second sequence of medical image data acquired during hyperemia;
• generating a first anatomical model of a coronary artery from the first sequence of medical image data and a second anatomical model of the coronary artery from the second sequence of medical image data;
• estimating a maximum velocity of blood in the coronary artery during the resting state based on a spatio-temporal representation of contrast agent propagation in the first sequence of medical image data and a maximum velocity of blood in the coronary artery during hyperemia based on a spatio-temporal representation of contrast agent propagation in the first sequence of medical image data;
• mapping the maximum velocity at rest to an average velocity at rest and the maximum velocity at hyperemia to an average velocity at hyperemia;
• and
• calculating the coronary flow reserve for the coronary artery based on the average rest velocity and the average hyperemia velocity.

An apparatus for non-invasive assessment coronary flow reserve (CFR) using medical image data, comprising:

• means for receiving a first sequence of medical image data acquired during a resting state and a second sequence of medical image data acquired during hyperemia;
• means for generating a first anatomical model of a coronary artery from the first sequence of medical image data and a second anatomical model of the coronary artery from the second sequence of medical image data;
• means for estimating a maximum velocity of blood in the coronary artery during the resting state based on a spatio-temporal representation of contrast agent propagation in the first sequence of medical image data and a maximum velocity of blood in the coronary artery during hyperemia based on a spatio-temporal representation of contrast agent propagation in the first sequence of medical image data;
• means for mapping the maximum velocity at rest to an average velocity at rest and the maximum velocity at hyperemia to an average velocity at hyperemia;
• and
• means for calculating the coronary flow reserve for the coronary artery based on the average rest velocity and the average hyperemia velocity.

A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for performing non-invasive assessment coronary flow reserve (CFR) using medical image data, the computer executable instructions performing steps comprising:

• receiving a first sequence of medical image data acquired during a resting state and a second sequence of medical image data acquired during hyperemia;
• generating a first anatomical model of a coronary artery from the first sequence of medical image data and a second anatomical model of the coronary artery from the second sequence of medical image data;
• estimating a maximum velocity of blood in the coronary artery during the resting state based on a spatio-temporal representation of contrast agent propagation in the first sequence of medical image data and a maximum velocity of blood in the coronary artery during hyperemia based on a spatio-temporal representation of contrast agent propagation in the first sequence of medical image data;
• mapping the maximum velocity at rest to an average velocity at rest and the maximum velocity at hyperemia to an average velocity at hyperemia;
• and
• calculating the coronary flow reserve for the coronary artery based on the average rest velocity and the average hyperemia velocity.