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Quantitative analysis of cardiovascular MR images

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Abstract

The diagnosis of cardiovascular disease requires the precise assessment of both morphology and function. Nearly all aspects of cardiovascular function and flow can be quantified nowadays with fast magnetic resonance (MR) imaging techniques. Conventional and breath-hold cine MR imaging allow the precise and highly reproducible assessment of global and regional left ventricular function. During the same examination, velocity encoded cine (VEC) MR imaging provides measurements of blood flow in the heart and great vessels. Quantitative image analysis often still relies on manual tracing of contours in the images. Reliable automated or semi-automated image analysis software would be very helpful to overcome the limitations associated with the manual and tedious processing of the images. Recent progress in MR imaging of the coronary arteries and myocardial perfusion imaging with contrast media, along with the further development of faster imaging sequences, suggest that MR imaging could evolve into a single technique (‘one stop shop’) for the evaluation of many aspects of heart disease. As a result, it is very likely that the need for automated image segmentation and analysis software algorithms will further increase. In this paper the developments directed towards the automated image analysis and semi-automated contour detection for cardiovascular MR imaging are presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Clinical and Experimental Image Processing (LKEB), Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Rob J. van der Geest & Johan H.C. Reiber

  2. Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Albert de Roos & Johan H.C. Reiber

  3. Department of Cardiology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Ernst E. van der Wall & Johan H.C. Reiber

  4. Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Johan H.C. Reiber

Authors
  1. Rob J. van der Geest
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  2. Albert de Roos
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  3. Ernst E. van der Wall
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  4. Johan H.C. Reiber
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van der Geest, R.J., de Roos, A., van der Wall, E.E. et al. Quantitative analysis of cardiovascular MR images. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 13, 247–258 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005869509149

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005869509149

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