Delineation of Blood Vessels in Coronary Artery Region for Classification of Different Types of Plaques

Abstract

Cardiac arrest in human arises owing to blood vessel diseases or heart defects. Blood vessel diseases result due to the blockage of blood in the heart vessels, which leads to pain in the heart. Heart defects occur because of damage in the cardiac muscles indicated by abnormal heart rhythms. Cardiovascular diseases cause mortality which could be avoided through the earlier detection of cardiovascular diseases. The major cause for cardiovascular diseases is cholesterol deposition inside the artery walls which later forms plaques that block the blood flow. Until now, plaques have been detected through medical imaging only after the heart attack. The plaques are blasted through angioplasty or reduced with medicine. Classification of the plaques before treatment, leads to effective medication based on the type of plaque. The sub classification of the plaque types such as rupture-prone plaque, ruptured plaque with sub occlusive thrombus, erosion-prone plaque, calcified nodule and non-plaque has been segmented and identified. In this paper, we propose a novel Spatial Fuzzy Propensity Score Matching (SFPSM) method to classify the plaques. The SFPSM method consists of clustering, ranking the cluster and region-based pixel wise analysis. Pixel analysis inspects specific regions of sub pixel points and calibrates the plaque. From the experimental results, the classification of plaque based on the 50-image data set has exhibited accuracy of 85% after validation. The plaque accuracy of classification provides the standard digital number values for the sub classification of plaques.