Computerized quantification analysis of left ventricular wall motion from echocardiograms

Two-dimensional echocardiography (2-D echo) imaging is a more attractive clinical tool than other modalities that either involve radiation exposure or are too slow to image heart motion in real-time. Computer-aided analysis of left ventricular(LV) wall motion provides quantitative parameters for diagnosis. This study presents a computerized model for quantitative analysis of left ventricular wall motion from two-dimensional echocardiography by the application of image processing algorithms, including automatic threshold estimation, contrast stretching, boundary detection and border smoothing. The wall motion measurements rely primarily on sequential changes from end-diastolic to end-systolic frames in the left ventricular contours of apical four-chamber view echocardiograms. Left ventricular wall motion was analyzed on the 30 segments of 5 patients with acute myocardial infarction. The results from the computerized model were compared to those obtained from qualitative analysis of echocardiograms by an experienced clinical cardiologist who was unaware of the results of quantitative data.