Combined 3D-Display of Cerebral Vasculature and Neuroanatomic Structures in MRI

Neuroradiologists and neurosurgeons in many clinical situations take a vital interest in images revealing not only intracranial vasculature, but also other neuroanatomic structures. With MRI, high-quality volume datasets may be acquired containing the necessary anatomic information. 3D-postprocessing methods are required in order to generate integrated displays of vessels and brain structures. With respect to this issue in this paper a 3D-visualization approach is proposed which has been designed according to the principles of robustness, user-friendliness and clinical practicality. It includes measurement techniques for the acquisition of flow-compensated angiographic datasets and T1-weighted tissue volumes as well as image processing methods operating on the ray-tracing principle.