Estimation of Cardiac Parameters using Image Processing

Recent advancements in sonographic techniques have led to non-invasive visualization of organs. These advancements demand use of image processing for measurements on the images obtained from different scans. However, accurate measurement of blood flow is usually very difficult inspite of its important role in clinical diagnosis. Hence for better diagnosis by doctors, systems offering fast and accurate measurements are need of the day. Many techniques developed by researchers are available today for measuring such offline data. In this paper a new system that uses image processing techniques to estimate cardiac parameters on a real time basis is discussed. Importantly, this technique offers high resolution measurements and importantly doesn´t require catheterization, hence plays an important role in examining parameters like blood flow rate, oxygen need, size of organs and tumors and diameters of vessels. Discussion of the algorithms for estimating the above parameters is made and results for two of the parameters viz. (1) estimation of ratio of left atrial diameter (LA) to aortic diameter (AO) and (2) oxygen content in these vessels is shown. Succinctly, the proposed system gives accurate online data of different cardiac parameters by the use of image processing techniques.