Image processing of myocardial contrast echocardiograms with intravenous injection of contrast for evaluation of myocardial perfusion

Myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) with intracoronary injection of contrast is a new technique of assessing regional myocardial perfusion. Intravenous administration of contrast is less invasive than intracoronary injection, however, it may be difficult to detect its subtle contrast effect on the image displayed. This paper describes a new image processing method for MCE with intravenous injection to detect the contrast effect on the images. The reliability of the processed data is checked and the data with sufficient reliability are used for comprehensible information of the myocardial perfusion in several forms of display. Results of the method with several MCE data are shown and they give certainty to the clinical usefulness of the method developed.