Three-dimensional left ventricular wall motion analysis using multiplane transesophageal echocardiography

摘要

The left ventricular (LV) wall motion is the most challenging and interesting task in cardiac evaluation. In this paper, an integrated system that measures and displays left ventricular wall motion is presented. Based on the 3D reconstruction of ventricle from nine rotational cross- sectional images acquired with multiplane transesophageal echocardiography (TEE), a quantitative and visual expression of the motion of LV is presented. Nine images were obtained with the transducer rotating around a central axis passing through LV. A sequence of image processing operations have been developed for detecting left ventricular boundaries from TEE images obtained with different angle in a whole cardiac cycle. The algorithm which integrates 2D boundary information into 3D volume representation is designed based on automata theory. The phantom study for computing the scaling factors between the image metrics and the physical metrics shows a good correlation between the computed results and the specimens in the in vitro study. Finally, the 3D shape visualization of the reconstructed moving ventricle is presented. The performance of proposed experiments shows good feasibility of the new application of TEE in cardiac evaluation.