Visualization techniques for improved orientation in three-dimensional echocardiography

摘要

Repair of a defect heart valve is of great advantage for the patient in comparison to replacement with a prosthesis. The applicability and the success of heart valve repair can be improved by an exact diagnosis of the valve's pathological modification. The best way for imaging heart valve insufficiencies is echocardiography, since it is fast, relatively cheap, can be used intraoperatively and provides information about morphology as well as blood flow. Three-dimensional echocardiography has been proven to be superior to conventional echocardiographic techniques. Although the overall structures are much better displayed by three-dimensional visualization methods, it is sometimes difficult to comprehend the orientation of the scene, since anatomical landmarks like the aortic outflow tract may be hidden by other structures. Also, such anatomical landmarks often are only partly contained in the acquired data set so that they are clearly visible in a few slices only, making them difficult to find in a three-dimensional visualization. The knowledge of the absolute orientation is of essential value for the surgeon to mentally transfer the preoperatively acquired data to the intraoperative situs. Therefore, it is desirable to have additional hints for orientation in the three-dimensional scene. We present methods that enable better and easier orientation and therefore improve the usability of three-dimensional echocardiography.