Analysis on various segmentation techniques – IMT measurement of common carotid artery

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are usually diagnosed either during heart attack or stroke, a stage which offers solution only for extending life time of the individual. Physicians depend on angiography, a much painful procedure or CT/MR imaging for the diagnosis. Early detection of CVDs offers the individual a better and healthier lifestyle. Ultrasound (US) imaging is much less expensive compared to CT/MR imaging. Also US imaging has no ionizing radiation and is harmless and noninvasive. Elasticity of the artery and intima-media thickness (IMT) are two important parameters which are used for diagnosing CVDs at an early stage in an individual. Estimating these in the carotid artery needs an experienced radiologist for precise measurement and is very time consuming. Radial Basis Function Network (RBFN) is compared with other methods for segmenting the boundary of the Carotid artery and is proven to robust with improved accuracy. Results obtained clearly indicate that the proposed method is very promising in early detection of plaque in arteries.