title: Multiview 3-D Echocardiography Fusion with Breath-Hold Position Tracking Using an Optical Tracking System.
abstract: Recent advances in echocardiography allow real-time 3-D dynamic image acquisition of the heart. However, one of the major limitations of 3-D echocardiography is the limited field of view, which results in an acquisition insufficient to cover the whole geometry of the heart. This study proposes the novel approach of fusing multiple 3-D echocardiography images using an optical tracking system that incorporates breath-hold position tracking to infer that the heart remains at the same position during different acquisitions. In six healthy male volunteers, 18 pairs of apical/parasternal 3-D ultrasound data sets were acquired during a single breath-hold as well as in subsequent breath-holds. The proposed method yielded a field of view improvement of 35.4 ± 12.5%. To improve the quality of the fused image, a wavelet-based fusion algorithm was developed that computes pixelwise likelihood values for overlapping voxels from multiple image views. The proposed wavelet-based fusion approach yielded significant improvement in contrast (66.46 ± 21.68%), contrast-to-noise ratio (49.92 ± 28.71%), signal-to-noise ratio (57.59 ± 47.85%) and feature count (13.06 ± 7.44%) in comparison to individual views.
authors.affiliation: Servier Virtual Cardiac Centre, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Department of Radiology & Diagnostic Imaging, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: punithak@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Kumaradevan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Punithakumar
authors.affiliation: Servier Virtual Cardiac Centre, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Department of Radiology & Diagnostic Imaging, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Abhilash R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Hareendranathan
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McNulty
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Biamonte
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Allen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Servier Virtual Cardiac Centre, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Department of Radiology & Diagnostic Imaging, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Noga
authors.affiliation: Servier Virtual Cardiac Centre, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Department of Radiology & Diagnostic Imaging, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Department of Computing Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Boulanger
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Harald
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Becher
mesh_terms: D062485:Breath Holding; D019560:Echocardiography, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio
keywords: Echocardiography; Electrocardiogram; Multiview fusion; Optical tracking; Wavelet transformation