Dual contrast TrueFISP imaging for left ventricular segmentation

Based on varying tissue contrasts at different RF flip angles, a new TrueFISP imaging strategy for cardiac function measurement is presented. A single breath-hold dual RF flip angle cine multi-slice TrueFISP imaging sequence was implemented which provides a significant increase in signal contrast between blood and myocardium. The increase in image contrast combined with different characteristics in RF response facilitates the delineation of cardiovascular borders. Based on this imaging strategy it is demonstrated how a simple 2D histogram clustering algorithm can be used for the fully automatic segmentation of the left ventricular (LV) blood pool. The method is validated with data acquired from 10 asymptomatic subjects, and the results are shown to be comparable to that of manual delineation by experienced observers.