A decision support system for gated blood pool studies

A gated heart study is a noninvasive method of detecting ventricular wall motion abnormalities. Since patients may be monitored at intervals over several years, the results of the test must be reproducible and quantitative. Currently, the parametric images of first harmonic phase and amplitude, together with the original images are assessed visually by a consultant in making his diagnosis. More information can be obtained by using multi-harmonic Fourier analysis of the image, but the amount of information is too much to assess by visual methods alone. The paper proposes an automatic system for diagnosis which will use all the additional information and present the results in a single image to assist the consultant in his diagnosis