A minimally interactive and reproducible method for abdominal aortic aneurysm quantification in 3D ultrasound and computed tomography with implicit template deformations

The maximum diameter of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a key quantification parameter for disease assessment. Although it is routinely measured on 2D-ultrasound images, using a volumetric approach is expected to improve measurement reproducibility. In this work, 3D-ultrasound or computed tomography imaging of patients with AAA was combined with a minimally interactive 3D segmentation based on implicit template deformation. Segmentation usability and reproducibility were evaluated on 81 patients, showing a mean measurement time of [2;8] min per case, and Dice coefficients of 0.87 ± 0.12 for 3D-US and 0.81 ± 0.08 for CT. Quantification parameters included a diameter measurement from 3D-US and CT volumes with respective confidence intervals of 0.51 [−2.5;3.52] mm and 1.00 [−1.68;3.67] mm. Additional volume measurements showed confidence intervals of 0.91 [−4.17;5.99] ml for 3D-US and 4.10 [−4.11;12.30] ml for CT.