Imaging the dynamics of cardiac fiber orientation in vivo using 3D Ultrasound Backscatter Tensor Imaging

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; p. 830
• Main Authors: Papadacci, Clement, Finel, Victor, Provost, Jean, Villemain, Olivier, Bruneval, Patrick, Gennisson, Jean-Luc, Tanter, Mickael, Fink, Mathias, Pernot, Mathieu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11.04.2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/166/985; 692/4019; Acoustics; Bioengineering; Engineering Sciences; Humanities and Social Sciences; Imaging; Life Sciences; Medical Physics; multidisciplinary; Physics; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); ultrasound ultrafast imaging myocardium echocardiography anisotropy; myocardium; ultrafast imaging; ultrasound; echocardiography; anisotropy
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-00946-7

The assessment of myocardial fiber disarray is of major interest for the study of the progression of myocardial disease. However, time-resolved imaging of the myocardial structure remains unavailable in clinical practice. In this study, we introduce 3D Backscatter Tensor Imaging (3D-BTI), an entirely novel ultrasound-based imaging technique that can map the myocardial fibers orientation and its dynamics with a temporal resolution of 10 ms during a single cardiac cycle, non-invasively and in vivo in entire volumes. 3D-BTI is based on ultrafast volumetric ultrasound acquisitions, which are used to quantify the spatial coherence of backscattered echoes at each point of the volume. The capability of 3D-BTI to map the fibers orientation was evaluated in vitro in 5 myocardial samples. The helicoidal transmural variation of fiber angles was in good agreement with the one obtained by histological analysis. 3D-BTI was then performed to map the fiber orientation dynamics in vivo in the beating heart of an open-chest sheep at a volume rate of 90 volumes/s. Finally, the clinical feasibility of 3D-BTI was shown on a healthy volunteer. These initial results indicate that 3D-BTI could become a fully non-invasive technique to assess myocardial disarray at the bedside of patients.