Determination of coordinate system in short-axis view of left ventricle

Abstract

With the increasing rate of myocardial infarction (MI) in men and women, it is important to develop a diagnosis tool to determine the effect of MI on the mechanics of the heart and to minimize the effect of heart muscle damage on overall cardiac performance. After a myocardial infarct, the left ventricle of the heart enlarges to compensate for a weak heart muscle. The enlarged and weakened heart gives rise to the clinical syndrome of heart failure. In order to maximize the mechanical performance of the weakened heart, regional ventricular loading and contraction must be understood. To isolate regional wall mechanics, a floating centroid for the left ventricle must to be calculated. This is easy in the normal heart where the left ventricle approximates a single radius of curvature; however in heart failure there are irregular shape changes that complicate this calculation. The conventional method used for centroid calculation employs a center of mass (COM) determination of the whole left ventricle. This method has many shortcomings when applied to an enlarged and irregular left ventricle. This paper proposes a new algorithm for centroid calculation based on iterative majorization to locate the centroid. © 2007 Springer.