A Vessel Extraction Method for Live Tumor Angiogenesis Images under Optical Resolution Photoacoustic Microscopy

Abstract

The invention provides a blood vessel extraction method for a live tumor angiogenesis image under an optical resolution photo-acoustic microscope (OR-PAM), and belongs to the field of image processing. First, a tumor angiogenesis image is preprocessed using a variety of enhanced algorithms, which enhances the contrast of small blood vessels effectively and reduces the influence of noise to the greatest degree. Then, a threshold is selected automatically to binaryze the image using an Otsu algorithm, which reduces the mis-classification probability. Finally, the centerline of a blood vessel is measured using a two-step fast marching method, so the calculated centerline can be located in the blood vessel more accurately. Blood vessel extraction using the traditional level set blood vessel extraction algorithm is too slow, while the running speed of the blood vessel extraction algorithm based on the fast marching method is increased greatly. Experimental results show that the method can be used to extract the blood vessel information of a tumor angiogenesis image more effectively, and has a good extraction effect for the information of small blood vessels.

Description

Technical field [0001] The invention relates to a method for extracting blood vessels for angiogenesis images of living tumors under an optical resolution photoacoustic microscope (OR-PAM), and belongs to the technical field of image processing. Background technique [0002] Angiogenesis refers to the development of new blood vessels from existing capillaries or post-capillary veins. Tumor angiogenesis is an extremely complex process, which generally includes the steps of vascular endothelial matrix degradation, endothelial cell migration, endothelial cell proliferation, endothelial cell ducting and branching to form vascular loops and formation of new basement membrane. The growth and metastasis of tumors is a process that depends on blood vessels. When the tumor volume grows to a certain extent, new blood vessels are needed to maintain its growth. A large number of studies have shown that benign tumors have few angiogenesis and slow growth of blood vessels, while most malignan...

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Problems solved by technology

[0006] In order to solve the problem that the traditional blood vessel extraction algorithm cannot extract small blood vessels well for tumor angiogenesis images, to achieve accurate extraction of blood vessel information in angiogenesis images, and to improve the robustness of blood vessel extraction, the present invention proposes a fusion of maximum inter-class variance Method (Otsu) and fast marching method ideas, a method for extracting blood vessel information from tumor angiogenesis images under photoacoustic microscopy

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