| 1. |
- Almeida, Nuno, et al.
(författare)
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Left atrial volumetric assessment using a novel automated framework for 3D echocardiography: a multi-centre analysis
- 2017
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Ingår i: European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Imaging. - : OXFORD UNIV PRESS. - 2047-2404 .- 2047-2412. ; 18:9, s. 1008-1015
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aims This study aims at validating a software tool for automated segmentation and quantification of the left atrium (LA) from 3D echocardiography. Methods and results The LA segmentation tool uses a dual-chamber model of the left side of the heart to automatically detect and track the atrio-ventricular plane and the LA endocardium in transthoracic 3D echocardiography. The tool was tested in a dataset of 121 ultrasound images from patients with several cardiovascular pathologies (in a multi-centre setting), and the resulting volumes were compared with those assessed manually by experts in a blinded analysis using conventional contouring. Bland-Altman analysis showed good agreement between the automated method and the manual references, with differences (mean +/- 1.96 SD) of 0.5 +/- 5.7 mL for LA minimum volume and -1.6 +/- 9.7 mL for LA maximum volume (comparable to the inter-observer variability of manual tracings). The automated tool required no user interaction in 93% of the recordings, while 4% required a single click and only 2% required contour adjustments, reducing considerably the amount of time and effort required for LA volumetric analysis. Conclusion The automated tool was validated in a multi-centre setting, providing quantification of the LA volume over the cardiac cycle with minimal user interaction. The results of the automated analysis were in agreement with those estimated manually by experts. This study shows that such approach has clinical utility for the assessment of the LA morphology and function, automating and facilitating the time-consuming task of analysing 3D echocardiographic recordings.
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| 2. |
- Morais, Pedro, et al.
(författare)
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Fully automatic left ventricular myocardial strain estimation in 2D short-axis tagged magnetic resonance imaging
- 2017
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Ingår i: Physics in Medicine and Biology. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD. - 0031-9155 .- 1361-6560. ; 62:17, s. 6899-6919
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cardiovascular diseases are among the leading causes of death and frequently result in local myocardial dysfunction. Among the numerous imaging modalities available to detect these dysfunctional regions, cardiac deformation imaging through tagged magnetic resonance imaging (t-MRI) has been an attractive approach. Nevertheless, fully automatic analysis of these data sets is still challenging. In this work, we present a fully automatic framework to estimate left ventricular myocardial deformation from t-MRI. This strategy performs automatic myocardial segmentation based on B-spline explicit active surfaces, which are initialized using an annular model. A non-rigid image-registration technique is then used to assess myocardial deformation. Three experiments were set up to validate the proposed framework using a clinical database of 75 patients. First, automatic segmentation accuracy was evaluated by comparing against manual delineations at one specific cardiac phase. The proposed solution showed an average perpendicular distance error of 2.35 +/- 1.21 mm and 2.27 +/- 1.02 mm for the endo- and epicardium, respectively. Second, starting from either manual or automatic segmentation, myocardial tracking was performed and the resulting strain curves were compared. It is shown that the automatic segmentation adds negligible differences during the strain-estimation stage, corroborating its accuracy. Finally, segmental strain was compared with scar tissue extent determined by delay-enhanced MRI. The results proved that both strain components were able to distinguish between normal and infarct regions. Overall, the proposed framework was shown to be accurate, robust, and attractive for clinical practice, as it overcomes several limitations of a manual analysis.
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| 3. |
- Myhre, Peder L., et al.
(författare)
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Cardiac Troponin T Concentrations, Reversible Myocardial Ischemia, and Indices of Left Ventricular Remodeling in Patients with Suspected Stable Angina Pectoris: a DOPPLER-CIP Substudy
- 2018
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Ingår i: Clinical Chemistry. - : AMER ASSOC CLINICAL CHEMISTRY. - 0009-9147 .- 1530-8561. ; 64:9, s. 1370-1379
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Cardiac troponin T concentrations measured with high-sensitivity assays (hs-cTnT) provide important prognostic information for patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD). However, whether hsc-TnT concentrations mainly reflect left ventricular (LV) remodeling or recurrent myocardial ischemia in this population is not known. METHODS: We measured hs-cTnT concentrations in 619 subjects with suspected stable CAD in a prospectively designed multicenter study. We identified associations with indices of LV remodeling, as assessed by cardiac MRI and echocardiography, and evidence of myocardial ischemia diagnosed by single positron emission computed tomography. RESULTS: Median hs-cTnT concentration was 7.8 ng/L (interquartile range, 4.8 -11.6 ng/L), and 111 patients (18%) had hs-cTnT concentrations above the upper reference limit (amp;gt; 14 ng/L). Patients with hs-cTnT amp;gt; 14 ng/L had increased LV mass (144 +/- 40 g vs 116 +/- 34 g; P amp;lt; 0.001) and volume (179 +/- 80 mL vs 158 +/- 44 mL; P = 0.006), lower LV ejection fraction (LVEF) (59 +/- 14 vs 62 +/- 11; P = 0.006) and global longitudinal strain (14.1 +/- 3.4% vs 16.9 +/- 3.2%; P amp;lt; 0.001), and more reversible perfusion defects (P amp;lt; 0.001) and reversible wall motion abnormalities (P = 0.008). Age (P = 0.009), estimated glomerular filtration rate (P = 0.01), LV mass (P = 0.003), LVEF (P = 0.03), and evidence of reversible myocardial ischemia (P = 0.004 for perfusion defects and P = 0.02 for LV wall motion) were all associated with increasing hs-cTnT concentrations in multivariate analysis. We found analogous results when using the revised US upper reference limit of 19 ng/L. CONCLUSIONS: hs-cTnT concentrations reflect both LV mass and reversible myocardial ischemia in patients with suspected stable CAD. (c) 2018 American Association for Clinical Chemistry
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| 4. |
- Pedrosa, Joao, et al.
(författare)
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Automatic Short Axis Orientation of the Left Ventricle in 3D Ultrasound Recordings
- 2016
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Ingår i: MEDICAL IMAGING 2016: ULTRASONIC IMAGING AND TOMOGRAPHY. - : SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING. - 9781510600256
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The recent advent of three-dimensional echocardiography has led to an increased interest from the scientific community in left ventricle segmentation frameworks for cardiac volume and function assessment. An automatic orientation of the segmented left ventricular mesh is an important step to obtain a point-to-point correspondence between the mesh and the cardiac anatomy. Furthermore, this would allow for an automatic division of the left ventricle into the standard 17 segments and, thus, fully automatic per-segment analysis, e.g. regional strain assessment. In this work, a method for fully automatic short axis orientation of the segmented left ventricle is presented. The proposed framework aims at detecting the inferior right ventricular insertion point. 211 three-dimensional echocardiographic images were used to validate this framework by comparison to manual annotation of the inferior right ventricular insertion point. A mean unsigned error of 8, 05 degrees +/- 18, 50 degrees was found, whereas the mean signed error was 1, 09 degrees. Large deviations between the manual and automatic annotations (amp;gt; 30 degrees) only occurred in 3, 79% of cases. The average computation time was 666ms in a non-optimized MATLAB environment, which potentiates real-time application. In conclusion, a successful automatic real-time method for orientation of the segmented left ventricle is proposed.
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| 5. |
- Pedrosa, Joao, et al.
(författare)
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Fast and Fully Automatic Left Ventricular Segmentation and Tracking in Echocardiography Using Shape-Based B-Spline Explicit Active Surfaces
- 2017
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Ingår i: IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. - : IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC. - 0278-0062 .- 1558-254X. ; 36:11, s. 2287-2296
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cardiac volume/function assessment remains a critical step in daily cardiology, and 3-D ultrasound plays an increasingly important role. Fully automatic left ventricular segmentation is, however, a challenging task due to the artifacts and low contrast-to-noise ratio of ultrasound imaging. In this paper, a fast and fully automatic framework for the full-cycle endocardial left ventricle segmentation is proposed. This approach couples the advantages of the B-spline explicit active surfaces framework, a purely image information approach, to those of statistical shape models to give prior information about the expected shape for an accurate segmentation. The segmentation is propagated throughout the heart cycle using a localized anatomical affine optical flow. It is shown that this approach not only outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in terms of distance metrics with a mean average distances of 1.81 +/- 0.59 and 1.98 +/- 0.66 mm at end-diastole and end-systole, respectively, but is computationally efficient (in average 11 s per 4-D image) and fully automatic.
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| 6. |
- Queiros, Sandro, et al.
(författare)
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Multi-centre validation of an automatic algorithm for fast 4D myocardial segmentation in cine CMR datasets
- 2016
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Ingår i: European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Imaging. - : OXFORD UNIV PRESS. - 2047-2404 .- 2047-2412. ; 17:10, s. 1118-1127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aims Quantitative analysis of cine cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) images for the assessment of global left ventricular morphology and function remains a routine task in clinical cardiology practice. To date, this process requires user interaction and therefore prolongs the examination (i.e. cost) and introduces observer variability. In this study, we sought to validate the feasibility, accuracy, and time efficiency of a novel framework for automatic quantification of left ventricular global function in a clinical setting. Methods and results Analyses of 318 CMR studies, acquired at the enrolment of patients in a multi-centre imaging trial (DOPPLER-CIP), were performed automatically, as well as manually. For comparative purposes, intra-and inter-observer variability was also assessed in a subset of patients. The extracted morphological and functional parameters were compared between both analyses, and time efficiency was evaluated. The automatic analysis was feasible in 95% of the cases (302/318) and showed a good agreement with manually derived reference measurements, with small biases and narrow limits of agreement particularly for end-diastolic volume (-4.08 +/- 8.98 mL), end-systolic volume (1.18 +/- 9.74 mL), and ejection fraction (-1.53 +/- 4.93%). These results were comparable with the agreement between two independent observers. A complete automatic analysis took 5.61 +/- 1.22 s, which is nearly 150 times faster than manual contouring (14 +/- 2 min, P amp;lt; 0.05). Conclusion The proposed automatic framework provides a fast, robust, and accurate quantification of relevant left ventricular clinical indices in real-world cine CMR images.
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| 7. |
- Tabassian, Mahdi, et al.
(författare)
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Machine learning of the spatio-temporal characteristics of echocardiographic deformation curves for infarct classification
- 2017
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Ingår i: The International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging. - : SPRINGER. - 1569-5794 .- 1875-8312 .- 1573-0743. ; 33:8, s. 1159-1167
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this study was to analyze the whole temporal profiles of the segmental deformation curves of the left ventricle (LV) and describe their interrelations to obtain more detailed information concerning global LV function in order to be able to identify abnormal changes in LV mechanics. The temporal characteristics of the segmental LV deformation curves were compactly described using an efficient decomposition into major patterns of variation through a statistical method, called Principal Component Analysis (PCA). In order to describe the spatial relations between the segmental traces, the PCA-derived temporal features of all LV segments were concatenated. The obtained set of features was then used to build an automatic classification system. The proposed methodology was applied to a group of 60 MRI-delayed enhancement confirmed infarct patients and 60 controls in order to detect myocardial infarction. An average classification accuracy of 87% with corresponding sensitivity and specificity rates of 89% and 85%, respectively was obtained by the proposed methodology applied on the strain rate curves. This classification performance was better than that obtained with the same methodology applied on the strain curves, reading of two expert cardiologists as well as comparative classification systems using only the spatial distribution of the end-systolic strain and peak-systolic strain rate values. This study shows the potential of machine learning in the field of cardiac deformation imaging where an efficient representation of the spatio-temporal characteristics of the segmental deformation curves allowed automatic classification of infarcted from control hearts with high accuracy.
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| 8. |
- Bernard, Olivier, et al.
(författare)
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Standardized evaluation system for left ventricular segmentation algorithms in 3D echocardiography.
- 2016
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Ingår i: IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. - : Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). - 0278-0062 .- 1558-254X. ; 35:4, s. 967-977
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Real-time 3D Echocardiography (RT3DE) has been proven to be an accurate tool for left ventricular (LV) volume assessment. However, identification of the LV endocardium remains a challenging task, mainly because of the low tissue/blood contrast of the images combined with typical artifacts. Several semi and fully automatic algorithms have been proposed for segmenting the endocardium in RT3DE data in order to extract relevant clinical indices, but a systematic and fair comparison between such methods has so far been impossible due to the lack of a publicly available common database. Here, we introduce a standardized evaluation framework to reliably evaluate and compare the performance of the algorithms developed to segment the LV border in RT3DE. A database consisting of 45 multivendor cardiac ultrasound recordings acquired at different centers with corresponding reference measurements from 3 experts are made available. The algorithms from nine research groups were quantitatively evaluated and compared using the proposed online platform. The results showed that the best methods produce promising results with respect to the experts' measurements for the extraction of clinical indices, and that they offer good segmentation precision in terms of mean distance error in the context of the experts' variability range. The platform remains open for new submissions.
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| 9. |
- Fröberg, Asa, et al.
(författare)
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High variability in strain estimation errors when using a commercial ultrasound speckle tracking algorithm on tendon tissue
- 2016
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Ingår i: Acta Radiologica. - : Sage Publications. - 0284-1851 .- 1600-0455. ; 57:10, s. 1223-1229
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Ultrasound speckle tracking offers a non-invasive way of studying strain in the free Achilles tendon where no anatomical landmarks are available for tracking. This provides new possibilities for studying injury mechanisms during sport activity and the effects of shoes, orthotic devices, and rehabilitation protocols on tendon biomechanics. Purpose: To investigate the feasibility of using a commercial ultrasound speckle tracking algorithm for assessing strain in tendon tissue. Material and Methods: A polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) phantom, three porcine tendons, and a human Achilles tendon were mounted in a materials testing machine and loaded to 4% peak strain. Ultrasound long-axis cine-loops of the samples were recorded. Speckle tracking analysis of axial strain was performed using a commercial speckle tracking software. Estimated strain was then compared to reference strain known from the materials testing machine. Two frame rates and two region of interest (ROI) sizes were evaluated. Results: Best agreement between estimated strain and reference strain was found in the PVA phantom (absolute error in peak strain: 0.21 +/- 0.08%). The absolute error in peak strain varied between 0.72 +/- 0.65% and 10.64 +/- 3.40% in the different tendon samples. Strain determined with a frame rate of 39.4Hz had lower errors than 78.6Hz as was the case with a 22mm compared to an 11mm ROI. Conclusion: Errors in peak strain estimation showed high variability between tendon samples and were large in relation to strain levels previously described in the Achilles tendon.
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| 10. |
- Larsson, Matilda, et al.
(författare)
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Strain assessment in the carotid artery wall using ultrasound speckle tracking : validation in a sheep model.
- 2015
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Ingår i: Physics in Medicine and Biology. - : IOP Publishing. - 0031-9155 .- 1361-6560. ; 60:3, s. 1107-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this study was to validate carotid artery strain assessment in-vivo using ultrasound speckle tracking. The left carotid artery of five sheep was exposed and sonomicrometry crystals were sutured onto the artery wall to obtain reference strain. Ultrasound imaging was performed at baseline and stress, followed by strain estimation using an in-house speckle tracking algorithm tuned for vascular applications. The correlation between estimated and reference strain was r = 0.95 (p < 0.001) and r = 0.87 (p < 0.01) for longitudinal and circumferential strain, respectively. Moreover, acceptable limits of agreement were found in Bland-Altman analysis (longitudinally: -0.15 to 0.42%, circumferentially: -0.54 to 0.50%), which demonstrates the feasibility of estimating carotid artery strain using ultrasound speckle tracking. However, further studies are needed to test the algorithm on human in-vivo data and to investigate its potential to detect subclinical cardiovascular disease and characterize atherosclerotic plaques.
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