A PC-based Workstation For Automatic Analysis Of Echocardiographic Examinations

Abstract

A system capable of automatically performing a large set of quantitative analyses on a sequence of 2-D echocardiographic images is widely recognized as being a needed and important tool in the cardiologic examination.In this paper we describe a low-cost workstation, based on a standard personal computer equipped with conventional image processing boards, and the software capable of executing most of the functions necessary to the left ventricle (LV) functional evaluation (areas, volumes, ejection fraction, etc). Other operations, like image enhancement, wall motion analysis and automatic report generation are also included.The algorithms for the automatic contour detection and wall motion studies are emphasized in the present paper.