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Abstract. In this paper we present a semi-automatic system for the analysis of echocardiographic image sequences, able to provide useful information to cardiologists. The proposed approach combines well known techniques for the detection of left ventricular boundaries with the computation of optical flow. The initial detection of the cavity contour is based on an improved balloon model, the computation of optical flow is performed with a correlation technique and the contour tracking is obtained combining motion information provided by the optical flow with a snake-based regularization. The system is able to follow precisely the cavities motion, to provide several quantitative features of the heart beat and a dynamic representation of systolic and diastolic motion. Preliminary experimental results are presented and commented with particular attention to their clinical relevance.