| 1. |
- Larsson, David, et al.
(författare)
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Patient-Specific Left Ventricular Flow Simulations From Transthoracic Echocardiography : Robustness Evaluation and Validation Against Ultrasound Doppler and Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- 2017
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Ingår i: IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. - : Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). - 0278-0062 .- 1558-254X. ; 36:11, s. 2261-2275
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The combination of medical imaging with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has enabled the study of 3D blood flow on a patient-specificlevel. However, with models based on gated high-resolution data, the study of transient flows, and any model implementation into routine cardiac care, is challenging. The present paper presents a novel pathway for patient-specific CFD modelling of the left ventricle (LV), using 4D transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) as input modality. To evaluate the clinical usability, two sub-studies were performed. First, a robustness evaluation was performed where repeated models with alternating input variables were generated for 6 subjects and changes in simulated output quantified. Second, a validation study was carried out where the pathway accuracy was evaluated against pulsed-wave Doppler (100 subjects), and 2D through-plane phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging measurements over 7 intraventricular planes (6 subjects). The robustness evaluation indicated a model deviation of <12%, with highest regional and temporal deviations at apical segments and at peak systole, respectively. The validation study showed an error of < 11% (velocities < 10 cm/s) for all subjects, with no significant regional or temporal differences observed. With the patient-specific pathway shown to provide robust output with high accuracy, and with the pathway dependent only on 4DTTE, the method has a high potential to be used within future clinical studies on 3D intraventricular flowpatterns. To this, future model developments in the form of e.g. anatomically accurate LV valves may further enhance the clinical value of the simulations.
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| 2. |
- Larsson, David, et al.
(författare)
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Estimation of left ventricular blood flow parameters : Clinical application of patient-specific CFD simulations from 4D echocardiography
- 2017
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Ingår i: Medical Imaging 2017. - : SPIE - International Society for Optical Engineering. - 9781510607231
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Echocardiography is the most commonly used image modality in cardiology, assessing several aspects of cardiac viability. The importance of cardiac hemodynamics and 4D blood flow motion has recently been highlighted, however such assessment is still difficult using routine echo-imaging. Instead, combining imaging with computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-simulations has proven valuable, but only a few models have been applied clinically. In the following, patient-specific CFD-simulations from transthoracic dobutamin stress echocardiography have been used to analyze the left ventricular 4D blood flow in three subjects: two with normal and one with reduced left ventricular function. At each stress level, 4D-images were acquired using a GE Vivid E9 (4VD, 1.7MHz/3.3MHz) and velocity fields simulated using a presented pathway involving endocardial segmentation, valve position identification, and solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation. Flow components defined as direct flow, delayed ejection flow, retained inflow, and residual volume were calculated by particle tracing using 4th-order Runge-Kutta integration. Additionally, systolic and diastolic average velocity fields were generated. Results indicated no major changes in average velocity fields for any of the subjects. For the two subjects with normal left ventricular function, increased direct flow, decreased delayed ejection flow, constant retained inflow, and a considerable drop in residual volume was seen at increasing stress. Contrary, for the subject with reduced left ventricular function, the delayed ejection flow increased whilst the retained inflow decreased at increasing stress levels. This feasibility study represents one of the first clinical applications of an echo-based patient-specific CFD-model at elevated stress levels, and highlights the potential of using echo-based models to capture highly transient flow events, as well as the ability of using simulation tools to study clinically complex phenomena. With larger patient studies planned for the future, and with the possibility of adding more anatomical features into the model framework, the current work demonstrates the potential of patient-specific CFD-models as a tool for quantifying 4D blood flow in the heart.
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| 3. |
- Maksuti, Elira, et al.
(författare)
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Strain and strain rate generated by shear wave elastography in an ex vivo porcine aorta
- 2017
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Ingår i: 2017 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS). - : IEEE Computer Society. - 9781538633830
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In order to generate trackable shear waves in soft tissues, transmitted pulses in shear wave elastography (SWE) are longer than conventional clinical ultrasound pulses. Nevertheless, they typically obey mechanical and thermal regulatory limits. In arterial applications, specific safety concerns may arise, as acoustic radiation (ARF)-induced stresses and strain rates could potentially affect the arterial wall. The aim of this study was to assess ARF-induced strain and strain rates in ex vivo arteries. A porcine aorta (diameters 8.5 mm, wall thickness 1.2 mm) was pressurized by a saline-filled water column at 60 and 120 mmHg. A Verasonics V1 system and a L7-4 transducer were used to generate the ARF in the middle of the anterior wall (F-number = 1, push length = [100, 200, 300] μs) and to perform plane-wave imaging (10 kHz). Cumulative axial displacement was estimated using 2D auto-correlation. The axial strain rate was calculated as the time-derivative of the axial strain, obtained by spatial linear regression of the displacement inside the anterior wall. The ex vivo peak strain and strain rate were compared with peak strain and strain rate values induced by the blood pressure changes in two healthy individuals and two patients with coronary artery disease at rest and measured by a dedicated in house speckle tracking algorithm. ARF-induced ex vivo peak strains were in the range 0.3-1% and strain rates in the range 6-23 s-1. Peak values were more affected by longer push duration than pressurization level. In vivo physiological peak strain was 33% and strain rate was 2 s-1. ARF-induced strain rates in vivo are likely to be lower than those assessed in this ex vivo setup due to ultrasound attenuation and the effect of surrounding tissue. Therefore, the results of the performed study suggest that SWE could be used in a safe manner for arterial applications even though specific effects of high strain rates are to be explored.
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| 4. |
- Maksuti, Elira, et al.
(författare)
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Strain and strain rate generated by shear wave elastography in ex vivo porcine aortas
- 2017
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Ingår i: IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, IUS. - : IEEE Computer Society. - 9781538633830
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In shear wave elastography (SWE), acoustic radiation forces (ARF) are employed to generate shear waves within the tissue. Although the transmitted pulses are longer than those in conventional clinical ultrasound, they typically obey the mechanical and thermal regulatory limits. In arterial applications, specific safety concerns may arise, as ARF-induced stresses and strain rates could potentially affect the arterial wall. A previous simulation study (Doherty et al., J Biomech, 2013 Jan; 46(1):83-90) showed that stresses imposed by the ARF used in SWE are orders of magnitude lower than those caused by blood pressure. ARF-induced strain rates have not been investigated yet, therefore the aim of this study was to assess such strain rates in an ex vivo setup.
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| 5. |
- Smoljkić, M., et al.
(författare)
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Comparison of in vivo vs. ex situ obtained material properties of sheep common carotid artery
- 2018
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Ingår i: Medical Engineering and Physics. - : Elsevier. - 1350-4533 .- 1873-4030. ; 55, s. 16-24
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Patient-specific biomechanical modelling can improve preoperative surgical planning. This requires patient-specific geometry as well as patient-specific material properties as input. The latter are, however, still quite challenging to estimate in vivo. This study focuses on the estimation of the mechanical properties of the arterial wall. Firstly, in vivo pressure, diameter and thickness of the arterial wall were acquired for sheep common carotid arteries. Next, the animals were sacrificed and the tissue was stored for mechanical testing. Planar biaxial tests were performed to obtain experimental stress-stretch curves. Finally, parameters for the hyperelastic Mooney–Rivlin and Gasser–Ogden–Holzapfel (GOH) material model were estimated based on the in vivo obtained pressure-diameter data as well as on the ex situ experimental stress-stretch curves. Both material models were able to capture the in vivo behaviour of the tissue. However, in the ex situ case only the GOH model provided satisfactory results. When comparing different fitting approaches, in vivo vs. ex situ, each of them showed its own advantages and disadvantages. The in vivo approach estimates the properties of the tissue in its physiological state while the ex situ approach allows to apply different loadings to properly capture the anisotropy of the tissue. Both of them could be further enhanced by improving the estimation of the stress-free state, i.e. by adding residual circumferential stresses in vivo and by accounting for the flattening effect of the tested samples ex vivo.
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| 6. |
- Bjällmark, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Velocity tracking - a novel method for quantitative analysis of longitudinal myocardial function
- 2007
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Ingår i: Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography. - : Elsevier. - 0894-7317 .- 1097-6795. ; 20:7, s. 847-856
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Doppler tissue imaging is a method for quantitative analysis of longitudinal myocardial velocity. Commercially available ultrasound systems can only present velocity information using a color Dopplerbased overlapping continuous color scale. The analysis is time-consuming and does not allow for simultaneous analysis in different projections. We have developed a new method, velocity tracking, using a stepwise color coding of the regional longitudinal myocardial velocity. The velocity data from 3 apical projections are presented as static and dynamic bull's-eye plots to give a 3-dimensional understanding of the function of the left ventricle. The static bull's-eye plot can display peak systolic velocity, late diastofic tissue velocity, or the sum of peak systolic velocity and early diastolic tissue velocity. Conversely, the dynamic bull's-eye plot displays how the myocardial velocities change over one heart cycle. Velocity tracking allows for a fast, simple, and hituitive visual analysis of the regional longitudinal contraction pattern of the left ventricle with a great potential to identify characteristic pathologic patterns.
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| 7. |
- Fejne, Frida, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Multiatlas Segmentation Using Robust Feature-Based Registration
- 2017
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Ingår i: , Cloud-Based Benchmarking of Medical Image Analysis. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 9783319496429 ; , s. 203-218
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper presents a pipeline which uses a multiatlas approach for multiorgan segmentation in whole-body CT images. In order to obtain accurate registrations between the target and the atlas images, we develop an adapted feature-based method which uses organ-specific features. These features are learnt during an offline preprocessing step, and thus, the algorithm still benefits from the speed of feature-based registration methods. These feature sets are then used to obtain pairwise non-rigid transformations using RANSAC followed by a thin-plate spline refinement or NiftyReg. The fusion of the transferred atlas labels is performed using a random forest classifier, and finally, the segmentation is obtained using graph cuts with a Potts model as interaction term. Our pipeline was evaluated on 20 organs in 10 whole-body CT images at the VISCERAL Anatomy Challenge, in conjunction with the International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging, Brooklyn, New York, in April 2015. It performed best on majority of the organs, with respect to the Dice index.
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| 8. |
- Fröberg, Åsa, et al.
(författare)
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Altered patterns of displacement within the Achilles tendon following surgical repair
- 2017
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Ingår i: Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0942-2056 .- 1433-7347. ; 25:6, s. 1857-1865
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ultrasound speckle tracking was used to compare tendon deformation patterns between uninjured and surgically repaired Achilles tendons at 14-27-month follow-up. The hypothesis was that the non-homogenous displacement pattern previously described in uninjured tendons, where displacement within deep layers of the tendons exceeds that of superficial layers, is altered following tendon rupture and subsequent surgical repair. In the first part of this study, an in-house-developed block-matching speckle tracking algorithm was evaluated for assessment of displacement on porcine flexor digitorum tendons. Displacement data from speckle tracking were compared to displacement data from manual tracking. In the second part of the study, eleven patients with previous unilateral surgically treated Achilles tendon rupture were investigated using ultrasound speckle tracking. The difference in superficial and deep tendon displacement was assessed. Displacement patterns in the surgically repaired and uninjured tendons were compared during passive motion (Thompson's squeeze test) and during active ankle dorsiflexion. The difference in peak displacement between superficial and deep layers was significantly (p < 0.01) larger in the uninjured tendons as compared to the surgically repaired tendons both during Thompson's test (-0.7 +/- 0.2 mm compared to -0.1 +/- 0.1 mm) and active dorsiflexion (3.3 +/- 1.1 mm compared to 0.3 +/- 0.2 mm). The evaluation of the speckle tracking algorithm showed correlations of r ae 0.89 between displacement data acquired from speckle tracking and the reference displacement acquired from manual tracking. Speckle tracking systematically underestimated the magnitude of displacement with coefficients of variation of less than 11.7%. Uninjured Achilles tendons display a non-uniform displacement pattern thought to reflect gliding between fascicles. This pattern was altered after a mean duration of 19 +/- 4 months following surgical repair of the tendon indicating that fascicle sliding is impaired. This may affect modulation of the action between different components of the triceps surae, which in turn may affect force transmission and tendon elasticity resulting in impaired function and risk of re-rupture.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Kahl, Fredrik, 1972, et al.
(författare)
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Good Features for Reliable Registration in Multi-Atlas Segmentation
- 2015
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Ingår i: CEUR Workshop Proceedings. - 1613-0073. ; 1390:January, s. 12-17
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This work presents a method for multi-organ segmentation in whole-body CT images based on a multi-atlas approach. A robust and efficient feature-based registration technique is developed which uses sparse organ specific features that are learnt based on their ability to register different organ types accurately. The best fitted feature points are used in RANSAC to estimate an affine transformation, followed by a thin plate spline refinement. This yields an accurate and reliable nonrigid transformation for each organ, which is independent of initialization and hence does not suffer from the local minima problem. Further, this is accomplished at a fraction of the time required by intensity-based methods. The technique is embedded into a standard multi-atlas framework using label transfer and fusion, followed by a random forest classifier which produces the data term for the final graph cut segmentation. For a majority of the classes our approach outperforms the competitors at the VISCERAL Anatomy Grand Challenge on segmentation at ISBI 2015.
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