A robust optical flow assessment of the epicardial contractility in cineangiography

An optical flow (motion field) approach is presented to assess the epicardial dynamics from the coronary arterial tree motion. This method is an enhanced version of epicardial motion assessment, which discards artifacts due to: (1) the noise level and (2) the epicardial region of interest (ROI) motion outside the fixed window used for logical epicardial deformation estimation. Simulated results are presented and clearly show the enhanced performance obtained with this new approach. The method is also illustrated with clinical cineangiograms taken during and 6 months after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. The results show the expected local improvement in epicardial contractility. This optical flow method strengthens the development of a new clinical tool based on epicardial motion estimation