MEASUREMENT OF THE GEOMETRIC PARAMETERS OF THE AORTIC BIFURCATION FROM MAGNETIC-RESONANCE IMAGES

This paper presents a method for measuring arterial geometry in vivo u sing MRI. The approach was validated using MR images of three perfused compliant casts of human aortic bifurcations whose geometry was known . Preliminary human studies demonstrated the reproducibility of the te chnique. The approach was applied to 20 normal individuals to study th e effects of age, race, and gender on the geometry of the aortic bifur cation. The results show that older people tend to have a smaller bifu rcation angle, lower planarity, and larger angular asymmetry than youn ger people. Asians have larger bifurcation angles than whites. The bif urcation of males is more asymmetric than that of females. These resul ts may have implications regarding the heritability of arterial geomet ry, the similarities of cardiovascular risk within families, and diffe rences in risk among groups.