Reconstruction of coronary circulation networks: a review of methods.

Building anatomically-accurate models of the coronary vascular system enables potentially deeper understandings of coronary circulation. To achieve this, (1) images at different levels of vascular network - arteries, arterioles, capillaries, venules, and veins - need to be obtained through suitable imaging modalities, (2) from images, morphological and topological information need to be extracted using image-processing techniques. While there are several modalities that enable the imaging of large vessels, microcirculation imaging- capturing vessels having diameter lesser than 100 μm - has to date been typically confined to small regions of the heart. This spatially limited microcirculatory information has often been used within cardiac models, with the potentially erroneous assumption that it is representative of the whole-organ. However, with the recent advancements in imaging and image processing, it is rapidly becoming feasible to acquire, process and quantify microcirculation data at the scale of whole-organ. In this review we summarize the progress towards this goal followed through a presentation of the current state-of-the-art imaging and image processing techniques in the context of coronary microcirculation extraction, prominently but not exclusively, from small animals. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.