Temporal enhancement of 3D echocardiography by frame reordering

We describe a method to increase the frame rate for 3-dimensional ultrasound sequences of periodically moving cardiac structures by reordering the acquired volume series. The frame rate is especially important in studying intracardiac structures such as valve leaflet motion in which valve closing times are on the order of milliseconds. Current commercially available systems for volumetric ultrasound imaging are limited to approximately 10 to 20 volumes per second. Although this frame rate is sufficient for real-time observation of basic cardiac morphology, understanding cardiac dynamics requires faster frame rates. The presented work achieves higher frame rates by sampling over several beats and using a simultaneous electrocardiography signal to accurately place the frame within the cardiac cycle. The proposed method relies on periodicity of the heart motion and that within the temporal regions of highest velocity, the structural motions of interest have the lowest beat-to-beat variability.