A shape-space-based approach to tracking myocardial borders and quantifying regional left-ventricular function applied in echocardiography.

Journal article

This paper presents a new semi-automatic method for quantifying regional heart function from two-dimensional echocardiography. In the approach, we first track the endocardial and epicardial boundaries using a new variant of the dynamic snake approach. The tracked borders are then decomposed into clinically meaningful regional parameters, using a novel interpretational shape-space motivated by the 16-segment model used in clinical practice for qualitative assessment of heart function. We show how a quantitative and automatic scoring scheme for the endocardial excursion and myocardial thickening can be derived from this. Results illustrating our approach on apical long-axis two-chamber-view data from a patient with a myocardial infarct in the apical anterior/inferior region of the heart are presented. In a case study (five patients, nine data sets) the performance of the tracking and interpretation techniques are compared with manual delineations of borders using a number of quantitative measures of regional comparison.

Authors: Jacob, G; Noble, J; Behrenbruch, C; Kelion, A; Banning, A

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: IEEE transactions on medical imaging
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 226-238
• Publication date: 2002-03-01
• DOI: 10.1109/42.996341
• EISSN: 1558-254X
• ISSN: 0278-0062
• Language: English
• Keywords: Elasticity; Heart; Movement; Humans; Myocardial Contraction; Image Enhancement; Ventricular Dysfunction, Left; Echocardiography; Algorithms; Models, Statistical; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; Myocardial Infarction; Sensitivity and Specificity; Models, Cardiovascular