Three-dimensional morphometric analysis of the renal vasculature.

We present a semi-supervised method for three-dimensional morphometric analysis of renal vasculature images generated by computed tomography. We derive quantitative vascular attributes important to mass transport between arteries, veins and the renal tissue, and present methods for their computation for a three-dimensional vascular geometry. To validate the algorithm, we compare automated vascular estimates with subjective manual measurements for a portion of rabbit kidney. While increased image resolution can improve outcomes, our results demonstrate that the method can quantify the morphological characteristics of artery-vein pairs, comparing favorably with manual measurements. Similar to the rat, we show that rabbit artery-vein pairs become less intimate along the course of the renal vasculature, but the total wrapped mass transfer coefficient increases then decreases. This new method will facilitate new quantitative physiological models describing the transport of small molecules within the kidney. PMID: 28931522 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Am J Physiol Renal P... - Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Tags: Am J Physiol Renal Physiol Source Type: research