A method and an apparatus for extracting a centerline of a tubular object are provided. The method includes: preprocessing an image of the tubular object whose centerline is to be extracted to obtain an enhanced image, acquiring a gradient vector flow field of the enhanced image; acquiring a deformation force parameter based on the gradient vector flow field and extracting ridge points of the tubular object from the enhanced image, establishing a regularized open curve deformable model; if a deformation end condition is not met, deforming and processing one ridge line segment in the initial ridge line segment list based on the model to obtain a centerline segment of the tubular object, updating the initial ridge line segment list based on the ridge line segment traversed; if the deformation end condition is met, generating a centerline of the tubular object based on the centerline segments.