Analysis of respiration-related movement of upper abdominal arteries: preliminary measurement for the development of a respiratory motion compensation technique of roadmap navigation

In this study, we analyzed the respiratory motion of the upper abdominal arteries preliminary to developing a method of respiratory motion correction for the roadmap technique used in vascular interventions. We retrospectively obtained six digital angiography sequences taken during respiration. The levels of the right and left hemidiaphragms and the positions of artery bifurcation points were measured manually through each sequence. Artery bifurcation points were classified as the hepatic artery group (HAG), splenic artery group (SAG), and celiac group (CG). Correlations between the motions of each hemidiaphragm and of the artery bifurcation points in each group were determined. We found that the vertical motion of the HAG and CG matched that of the right hemidiaphragm ( r = 0.924 and r = 0.888, respectively). The vertical motion of the SAG matched that of the left hemidiaphragm ( r = 0.949). The mean horizontal movements for all groups were up to 1.90 mm. The vertical motion for each group matched that of the right or the left hemidiaphragm. These findings will facilitate the development of a method of respiratory motion correction for the roadmap technique.