Myocardial Motion and Strain Rate Analysis from Ultrasound Sequences

• Published in: Complex Motion pp. 177 - 189
• Main Authors: Sühling, Michael, Arigovindan, Muthuvel, Jansen, Christian, Hunziker, Patrick, Unser, Michael
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin, Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Active Contour Model; Average Angular Error; Myocardial Motion; Tissue Doppler Imaging; Tissue Doppler Velocity
• ISBN: 3540698647; 9783540698647
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-69866-1_13

We present an optical flow-based algorithm to estimate heart wall motion from ultrasound sequences. The method exploits two ultrasound modalities, i.e., B-mode (grayscale data) and tissue Doppler (partial velocity measurements). We use a local affine velocity model to account for typical heart motions such as contraction/expansion and shear. The affine model parameters give also access to so-called strain rate parameters that describe local myocardial deformation such as wall thickening. The estimation of large motions is made possible through the use of a coarse-to-fine multi-scale strategy, which also adds robustness to the method.