RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTRAHEPATIC VESSELS AND COMPUTER-GENERATED HEPATIC SCISSURAE - AN IN-VITRO ASSAY

Liver segmentation is a matter of increasing importance for radiologis ts, in particular with respect to accurate preoperative localisation o f focal. hepatic lesions. Procedures for delineating the segmental ana tomy from CT or MR images are therefore much in demand. In this contex t, a convenient technique for generating the intersegmental scissurae by computer has recently been proposed [9], The procedure, however, se emed questionable from an anatomical point of view. We therefore check ed its relevance using anatomical vascular casts of post mortem Livers and comparing the computer-generated scissurae with the actual course of the intrahepatic vessels. The results presented in this paper conf irm that a rigid application of flat scissural planes is not able to r ender the real intrahepatic compartmentation. Only techniques consider ing the effective individual vascular anatomy can provide a correct de termination of the hepatic segments.