Visualizing a course of a vasculature structure with an occlusion

Abstract

The present invention relates to visualizing vasculature structure. In order to provide an improved visualizing a course of a vasculature structures with an occlusion, it is provided: a) to determine () a region of interest in a first image of a sequence of a cardiac vasculature structure, which is at least partly injected with contrast agent; wherein the vasculature structure comprises an occlusion and wherein vessel portions distal of the occlusion are non-visible; b) to identify () a trajectory proposal from a proximal vessel portion that is visible in the image to a distal portion of the occlusion as a first estimation of the non-visible vessel portions; c) to modify () the trajectory proposal generating a plurality of possible trajectories for matching with the vessel course in a next image of the sequence; d) to determine () a plausibility value for each of the possible trajectories; e) to select () the possible trajectory with the highest plausibility value as vessel course indicator for the first image; f) to repeat () steps c) to e) for each image of the sequence to achieve a sequence of vessel course indicators; g) to associate () the vessel course indicators to the images corresponding to the same heart phase of the sequence of the cardiac vasculature structure; and h) to display () an illustration of the cardiac vasculature structure with the associated course indicators.