Left ventricular myocardial motion tracking in cardiac cine magnetic resonance images based on a biomechanical model.

BACKGROUND

Cardiac cine magnetic resonance (CCMR) imaging plays an important role in the clinical cardiovascular disease (CVD) examination and evaluation.

OBJECTIVE

To accurately reconstruct the displacement field and describe the motion of the left ventricular myocardium (LVM), this study proposes and tests a new approach for tracking myocardial motion of the left ventricle based on a biomechanical model.

METHODS

CCMR imaging data acquired from 103 patients are enrolled, including two simulated and 101 clinical data. A non-rigid image registration method with a combination of a thin-plate spline function and random sample consensus is used to recover the observed displacement field of LVM. Next, a biomechanical model and a material matrix are introduced to solve the dense displacement field of LVM using a finite element framework. Then, the tracking precision and error of results for the two groups are analyzed.

RESULTS

Displacement results of the simulated data show correlation coefficient≥0.876 and mean square error≤0.159, while displacement results of the clinical data show Dice≥0.97 and mean contour distance≤0.464. Additionally, the strain results show correlation coefficient≥0.717.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates that the proposed new method enables to accurately track the motion of the LVM and evaluate strain, which has clinical auxiliary value in the diagnosis of CVD.