Differentiable centerline-aware framework for aneurysm neck delineation in volumetric angiography

Accurate morphological characterization of the intracranial aneurysm (IA) neck is fundamental to clinical decision-making and interventional planning. While Three-Dimensional Rotational Angiography serves as the reference standard, automated analysis across volumetric modalities (CTA/MRA) is hindered by topological discontinuities near bifurcations. Existing voxel-wise methods often produce jagged boundaries, compromising metric reliability. To address this, we propose NeckSpline, a differentiable framework treating the neck as a continuous, periodic cubic B-spline. Unlike discrete approaches, it optimizes a closed curve anchored by the parent-vessel centerline, integrating a tightness regularizer and Euler Characteristic (EC) topological loss. Extensive evaluations on MCA-CTA and ADAM-TOF benchmarks demonstrate that NeckSpline achieves superior localization accuracy and clinical non-inferiority, with a neck width Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.44 mm and an angle MAE of 4.6°, significantly outperforming state-of-the-art baselines while maintaining sub-second inference. By guaranteeing topological integrity and sub-voxel precision, the framework offers a robust solution for automated pre-procedural assessment.

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Publication Details

Journal
npj Digital Medicine
Published
2026-04-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-026-02613-6
Primary Topic
Intracranial Aneurysms: Treatment and Complications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Differentiable centerline-aware framework for aneurysm neck delineation in volumetric angiography

Xinyan Liu, Shuogui Xu, Bilin Tao, Hongyue Zhang et al.
npj Digital Medicine
Intracranial Aneurysms: Treatment and Complications
article

Differentiable centerline-aware framework for aneurysm neck delineation in volumetric angiography

Xinyan Liu, Shuogui Xu, Bilin Tao, Hongyue Zhang, Jian Zhou
article en

Abstract

Accurate morphological characterization of the intracranial aneurysm (IA) neck is fundamental to clinical decision-making and interventional planning. While Three-Dimensional Rotational Angiography serves as the reference standard, automated analysis across volumetric modalities (CTA/MRA) is hindered by topological discontinuities near bifurcations. Existing voxel-wise methods often produce jagged boundaries, compromising metric reliability. To address this, we propose NeckSpline, a differentiable framework treating the neck as a continuous, periodic cubic B-spline. Unlike discrete approaches, it optimizes a closed curve anchored by the parent-vessel centerline, integrating a tightness regularizer and Euler Characteristic (EC) topological loss. Extensive evaluations on MCA-CTA and ADAM-TOF benchmarks demonstrate that NeckSpline achieves superior localization accuracy and clinical non-inferiority, with a neck width Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.44 mm and an angle MAE of 4.6°, significantly outperforming state-of-the-art baselines while maintaining sub-second inference. By guaranteeing topological integrity and sub-voxel precision, the framework offers a robust solution for automated pre-procedural assessment.

npj Digital Medicine
Naval Medical Research Command (US), Second Military Medical University (CN), Shanghai Changzheng Hospital (CN), Changhai Hospital (CN)
Changhai Hospital of Shanghai
Openalex Percentile: Top 7%
Intracranial Aneurysms: Treatment and Complications
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Differentiable centerline-aware framework for aneurysm neck delineation in volumetric angiography — Xinyan Liu, Shuogui Xu, et al. · npj Digital Medicine (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS