Modified Hough transform for left ventricle myocardium segmentation in 3-D echocardiogram images

Segmentation of the left ventricular myocardium from 3D echocardiograms is complicated by speckle, artifact, and complex anatomy. Typical segmentation methods benefit from accurate initialization. We propose a two-step Hough transform to find an annular approximation of the myocardium in short-axis echo slices. The method was compared to manual segmentation of 5641 slices by center points and endocardial and epicardial radii. Centers deviated by a mean 3.31 mm, and radii by 2.57 mm and 3.04 mm, respectively. Dice´s coefficient of similarity was 0.70. Similarity is higher when apical slices are ignored. 93.8% of all slices and 96.8% of non-apical slices met criteria that suggest they would be appropriate to initialize further segmentation.