Context-based segmentation and analysis of multi-cycle real-time cardiac MRI

The recent development of a real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique with 20 to 30 ms temporal resolution allows for imaging multiple consecutive heart cycles, without the need for breath holding or ECG synchronization. Manual analysis of the resulting image series is no longer feasible because of their length. We propose a region-based algorithm for automatically segmenting the myocardium in consecutive heart cycles based on local context and prior knowledge. The method was evaluated on ten real-time MRI series and compared to segmentations by two observers, with promising results. We show that our approach enables a multicycle analysis of the heart function robust to breathing and arrhythmia.