Heart segmentation in cardiac rest and stress imaging

摘要

A patient (14), at rest, is injected with a first isotope tracer. After a first uptake period, the patient is stressed and injected with a second isotope tracer. After a second isotope tracer uptake period, first and second isotope imaging data are concurrently detected by data acquiring devices (16). The first and second isotope imaging data are reconstructed into a first or rest state image, a second or stressed state image, and optionally a combined first and second isotope image. The image with the better image statistics is segmented to generate segmentation parameters, which segmentation parameters are applied to both the first or rest and second or stressed state images. In this manner, an image whose image statistics may be too weak for accurate segmentation is accurately segmented by generating two inherently aligned images and applying the same segmentation parameters to both.