Efficient workflow for automatic segmentation of the right heart based on 2D echocardiography

Abstract

The present study aimed to present a workflow algorithm for automatic processing of 2D echocardiography images. The workflow was based on several sequential steps. For each step, we compared different approaches. Epicardial 2D echocardiography datasets were acquired during various open-chest beating-heart surgical procedures in three porcine hearts. We proposed a metric called the global index that is a weighted average of several accuracy coefficients, indices and the mean processing time. This metric allows the estimation of the speed and accuracy for processing each image. The global index ranges from 0 to 1, which facilitates comparison between different approaches. The second step involved comparison among filtering, sharpening and segmentation techniques. During the noise reduction step, we compared the median filter, total variation filter, bilateral filter, curvature flow filter, non-local means filter and mean shift filter. To clarify the endocardium borders of the right heart, we used the linear sharpen. Lastly, we applied watershed segmentation, clusterisation, region-growing, morphological segmentation, image foresting segmentation and isoline delineation. We assessed all the techniques and identified the most appropriate workflow for echocardiography image segmentation of the right heart. For successful processing and segmentation of echocardiography images with minimal error, we found that the workflow should include the total variation filter/bilateral filter, linear sharpen technique, isoline delineation/region-growing segmentation and morphological post-processing. We presented an efficient and accurate workflow for the precise diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. We introduced the global index metric for image pre-processing and segmentation estimation.

Ray-Based Segmentation Algorithm for Medical Imaging

“…Each algorithm has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some of the widely used algorithms were considered in (Danilov et al, 2018(Danilov et al, , 2017Noble and Boukerroui, 2006;Pham et al, 2000). In several contexts, there is often a need to obtain segmented images.…”

Automatic 2D Segmentation of an Intracardiac Catheter Based on MSER Blob Detector and Eccentricity

“…Echocardiography is commonly used for perioperative diagnostics and instrument guidance, given noninvasiveness, the absence of ionizing radiation and low cost of this modality. An analysis of echocardiography is performed in a wide range of publications, studying the heart conditions or interventions visualization (6)(7)(8)(9)(10). Despite the advantages of echocardiography, it has a number of drawbacks such as high level of noise, the presence of image artifacts, the complexity of data interpretation and low spatial resolution.…”