Application of automatic boundary detection for computerized quantitative analysis of left ventricular regional wall motion by two- dimensional echocardiography

The four-chamber view echocardiographic images of seven normal subjects and five patients with acute myocardial infarction were investigated to set up a computer-aided image processing algorithm for boundary detection and to establish a computerized model for quantitative analysis of left ventricular wall motion with the application of automatic boundary detection. The displacements of the left ventricular endocardial contour from end-diastolic to end-systolic frame were measured using a sample point connection model. The wall motion curves in patients were compared with the normal wall motion pattern established from the normal subjects to identify the segments with normal or abnormal wall motion. Preliminary results suggest that computer-aided boundary detection can be applied to establish an objective and useful model for quantitative analysis of left ventricular regional wall motion.