Method for Passive Imaging of the Left Anterior Descending Coronary Artery in thePresence of Coherent Heart Wall Motion

摘要

This report describes a method to passively image the left anterior descendingcoronary artery when high-level coherent heart wall energy is present in the immediate vicinity of the artery. It is shown through simulation that a reduced variance distortionless response (RVDR) focused beamformer has the capability to suppress the front heart wall motion caused by blood-flow:induced energy, and can thus properly image the low-signal-level, flow-induced energy from the coronary arteries and the interventricular septum. It is also shown that separating the coronary artery from the septum is a signal to noise issue. Human data that are similar to the simulations for imaging the septum region are presented. In addition, other possible energy sources in the data and energy propagation paths are discussed.