VESGEN 2D: Automated, User‐Interactive Software for Quantification and Mapping of Angiogenic and Lymphangiogenic Trees and Networks

Vickerman, Mary B.; Keith, Patricia; McKay, Terri L.; Gedeon, Dan J.; Watanabe, Michiko; Montano, Monica M.; Karunamuni, Ganga; Kaiser, Peter K.; Sears, Jonathan E.; Ebrahem, Quteba; Ribita, Daniela; Hylton, Alan; Parsons‐Wingerter, Patricia

doi:10.1002/ar.20887

Cited by 14 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…The methods [3], [9] classify vessels only inside the ROI where the aforementioned complications may be less severe, but their propagation to the outside of the ROI may be difficult without the knowledge of structural properties of vessels. Therefore, it may be imperative to consider vascular features such as orientation, width, and intensity; and principles of vascular tree connectivity, branching and tapering; to identify a true vessel and to propagate AV classification to the periphery, as described in [4], [7], [22], [23]. The proposed method provides a structural mapping for vessel tree identification that enables AV feature extraction without the ROI constraint and AV classification over the complete vessel network.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…structural mapping, and the error introduced during the structural mapping process may not be resolved and/or corrected entirely as a part of the final classification output. A different vessel separation method with a higher accuracy, e.g., [4] (applicable to fluorescence angiography images), introduced as the basis to the AV classification process may report a superior performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unfortunately, the detection of minute changes in vessel width or tortuosity specific to arteries or veins may be difficult in a visual evaluation by an ophthalmologist or by a semi-automated method, which is laborious in clinical practice. Therefore, an automated identification and separation of individual vessel trees and the subsequent classification into arteries and veins is required for vessel specific morphology analysis [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As per our knowledge, the only method developed with this objective was reported by Lau et al, using an optimal forest search on segmented vessel trees given a set of constraints based on directional information [5]. The other method for retinal vessel separation, however not applicable to color fundus images, was reported by Vickerman et al, that is applicable to fluorescence angiogram images only where arteries are identified as they are filled with contrast before veins [4]. The contrast based separation is then propagated into the entire vessel network using morphologic and connectivity features of retinal vessels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Automated Method for Identification and Artery-Venous Classification of Vessel Trees in Retinal Vessel Networks

et al. 2014

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The separation of the retinal vessel network into distinct arterial and venous vessel trees is of high interest. We propose an automated method for identification and separation of retinal vessel trees in a retinal color image by converting a vessel segmentation image into a vessel segment map and identifying the individual vessel trees by graph search. Orientation, width, and intensity of each vessel segment are utilized to find the optimal graph of vessel segments. The separated vessel trees are labeled as primary vessel or branches. We utilize the separated vessel trees for arterial-venous (AV) classification, based on the color properties of the vessels in each tree graph. We applied our approach to a dataset of 50 fundus images from 50 subjects. The proposed method resulted in an accuracy of 91.44 correctly classified vessel pixels as either artery or vein. The accuracy of correctly classified major vessel segments was 96.42.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Automated Method for Identification and Artery-Venous Classification of Vessel Trees in Retinal Vessel Networks

et al. 2014

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“…VESGEN analyzes three major types of vascular morphology: branching vascular trees, vascular networks, and tree-network composites (Vickerman et al 2009). Output parameters include vessel diameter, length and branchpoint density, fractal dimension, tortuosity and avascular space/vessel relationships as well as various image mappings.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of VEGF and tissue hypoxia in patterning of neural and vascular cells recruited to the embryonic heart

Yang

Radhakrishnan

Whitfield

et al. 2009

Developmental Dynamics

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We hypothesized that oxygen gradients and hypoxia-responsive signaling may play a role in the patterning of neural or vascular cells recruited to the developing heart. Endothelial progenitor and neural cells are recruited to and form branched structures adjacent to the relatively hypoxic outflow tract (OFT) myocardium from stages 27-32 (ED6.5-7.5) of chick development. As determined by whole mount confocal microscopy, the neural and vascular structures were not anatomically associated. Adenoviral delivery of a VEGF trap dramatically affected the remodeling of the vascular plexus into a coronary tree while neuronal branching was normal. Both neuronal and vascular branching was diminished in the hearts of embryos incubated under hyperoxic conditions. Quantitative analysis of the vascular defects using our recently developed VESGEN program demonstrated reduced small vessel branching and increased vessel diameters. We propose that vascular and neural patterning in the developing heart share dependence on tissue oxygen gradients but are not interdependent.

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Retinal vessel changes in pulmonary arterial hypertension

et al. 2022

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Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is classically considered an isolated small vessel vasculopathy of the lungs with peripheral pulmonary vascular obliteration. Systemic manifestations of PAH are increasingly acknowledged, but data remain limited. We hypothesized that retinal vascular changes occur in PAH. PAH subjects underwent retinal fluorescein angiography (FA) and routine disease severity measures were collected from the medical record. FA studies were analyzed using VESsel GENerational Analysis (VESGEN), a noninvasive, user‐interactive computer software that assigns branching generation to large and small vessels. FAs from controls (n = 8) and PAH subjects (n = 9) were compared. The tortuosity of retinal arteries was higher in PAH subjects compared to unmatched controls (1.17, 95% confidence interval: [1.14, 1.20] in PAH vs. 1.13, 95% CI: [1.12, 1.14] in controls, p = 0.01). Venous tortuosity was higher and more variable in PAH (1.17, 95% CI: [1.14, 1.20]) compared to controls (1.13, 95% CI: [1.12, 1.15]), p = 0.02. PAH subjects without connective tissue disease had the highest degree of retinal tortuosity relative to controls (arterial, p = 0.01; venous, p = 0.03). Younger PAH subjects had greater retinal arterial tortuosity, which attenuated with age and was not observed in controls. Retinal vascular parameters correlated with some clinical measures of disease in PAH subjects. In conclusion, PAH subjects exhibit higher retinal vascular tortuosity. Retinal vascular changes may track with pulmonary vascular disease progression. Use of FA and VESGEN may facilitate early, noninvasive detection of PAH.

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VESGEN 2D: Automated, User‐Interactive Software for Quantification and Mapping of Angiogenic and Lymphangiogenic Trees and Networks

Abstract: Pseudocolor view of vascular branching generations in the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) of quail. Vascular architecture was analyzed using the automated, user‐interactive software, VESsel GENeration Analysis (VESGEN). See Vickerman, et al., on page 320, in this issue.

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

Automated Method for Identification and Artery-Venous Classification of Vessel Trees in Retinal Vessel Networks

Automated Method for Identification and Artery-Venous Classification of Vessel Trees in Retinal Vessel Networks

Role of VEGF and tissue hypoxia in patterning of neural and vascular cells recruited to the embryonic heart

Retinal vessel changes in pulmonary arterial hypertension

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