title: Segmentation of the Aortic Valve Apparatus in 3D Echocardiographic Images: Deformable Modeling of a Branching Medial Structure.
abstract: 3D echocardiographic (3DE) imaging is a useful tool for assessing the complex geometry of the aortic valve apparatus. Segmentation of this structure in 3DE images is a challenging task that benefits from shape-guided deformable modeling methods, which enable inter-subject statistical shape comparison. Prior work demonstrates the efficacy of using continuous medial representation (cm-rep) as a shape descriptor for valve leaflets. However, its application to the entire aortic valve apparatus is limited since the structure has a branching medial geometry that cannot be explicitly parameterized in the original cm-rep framework. In this work, we show that the aortic valve apparatus can be accurately segmented using a new branching medial modeling paradigm. The segmentation method achieves a mean boundary displacement of 0.6 ± 0.1 mm (approximately one voxel) relative to manual segmentation on 11 3DE images of normal open aortic valves. This study demonstrates a promising approach for quantitative 3DE analysis of aortic valve morphology.
authors.affiliation: Gorman Cardiovascular Research Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Alison M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Pouch
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Sijie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Manabu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takabe
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Hongzhi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Jiefu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Albert T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.forename: Benjamin M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Joseph H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Gorman
authors.forename: Robert C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Gorman
authors.forename: Paul A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Yushkevich
keywords: 3D echocardiography; Aortic valve; Deformable modeling; Medial axis representation