Point–Tracked Quantitative Analysis of Left Ventricular Motion from 3D Image Sequences

We propose and validate the hypothesis that we can use differential shape properties of the myocardial surfaces to recover dense field motion from standard three–dimensional image data (MRI and CT). Quantitative measures of left ventricular regional function can be further inferred from the point correspondence maps. The non-invasive, algorithm–derived results are validated in two levels: the motion trajectories are compared to those of implanted imaging–opaque markers of a canine model in two imaging modalities, where sub–pixel accuracy is achieved, and the validity of using motion parameters (path length and thickness changes) in detecting myocardial injury is tested by comparison to post–mortem TTC staining of myocardial tissue, where the Pearson product–moment correlation value is 0.968.