2009 Articles

Coronary Occlusion Detection with 4D Optical Flow Based Strain Estimation on 4D Ultrasound

Duan, Qi; Angelini, Elsa D.; Lorsakul, Auranuch; Homma, Shunichi; Laine, Andrew F.

Real-time three-dimensional echocardiography (RT3DE) offers an efficient way to obtain complete 3D images of the heart over an entire cardiac cycle in just a few seconds. The complex 3D wall motion and temporal information contained in these 4D data sequences has the potential to enhance and supplement other imaging modalities for clinical diagnoses based on cardiac motion analysis. In our previous work, a 4D optical flow based method was developed to estimate dynamic cardiac metrics, including strains and displacements, from 4D ultrasound. In this study, in order to evaluate the ability of our method in detecting ischemic regions, coronary artery occlusion experiments at various locations were performed on five dogs. 4D ultrasound data acquired during these experiments were analyzed with our proposed method. Ischemic regions predicted by the outcome of strain measurements were compared to predictions from cardiac physiology with strong agreement. This is the first direct validation study of our image analysis method for biomechanical prediction and in vivo experimental outcome.