<title>Quantitative wall motion coding in three-dimensional echocardiography</title>

Abstract

In two-dimensional echocardiography, wall inolion analysis is imporian in deieciion of hear! dysfunction. The methods used suffer from being oniy approxiinaiions due lo the complex movement of Ihe hearl. The purpose of our study is o use three-dimensional ulirasound in order lo improve Ihe quaniiiaiive analysis of Ike left ventricular wall motion. The wall motion is calculated using the three-dimensional Euclidean distance transform, resnliin.g in, a set of vectors normal to the endocardial surface. The endocardial wall velocity values are color coded and the surface is rendered creating a cineloop of the left ventricle with color intensities indicaiin.g the wall motion. The three-dimensional motion coding technique allows for a precise quantitative analysis of the heart function. Infarcted areas are shown lo be marked out with different color intensities due to Ihe muscle activity reduction in that region. The three-dimensional reconstruction improves the diagnosis by visualizing and localizing the whole dysfunctional region in relation to the rest of the ventricular structure.