Carotid Artery Plaque Analysis in 3D Based on Distance Encoding in Mesh Representations

Purpose: Enabling a comprehensive and robust assessment of carotid artery plaques in 3D through extraction and visualization of quantitative plaque parameters. These parameters have potential applications in stroke risk analysis, evaluation of therapy effectiveness, and plaque progression prediction. Methods: We propose a novel method for extracting a plaque mesh from 3D vessel wall segmentation using distance encoding on the inner and outer wall mesh for precise plaque structure analysis. A case-specific threshold, derived from the normal vessel wall thickness, was applied to extract plaques from a dataset of 202 T1-weighted black-blood MRI scans of subjects with up to 50% stenosis. Applied to baseline and one-year follow-up data, the method supports detailed plaque morphology analysis over time, including plaque volume quantification, aided by improved visualization via mesh unfolding. Results: We successfully extracted plaque meshes from 341 carotid arteries, capturing a wide range of plaque shapes with volumes ranging from 2.69{\mu}l to 847.7{\mu}l. The use of a case-specific threshold effectively eliminated false positives in young, healthy subjects. Conclusion: The proposed method enables precise extraction of plaque meshes from 3D vessel wall segmentation masks enabling a correspondence between baseline and one-year follow-up examinations. Unfolding the plaque meshes enhances visualization, while the mesh-based analysis allows quantification of plaque parameters independent of voxel resolution.