Three-dimensional reconstruction of mitral and tricuspid annuli using magnetic resonance imaging and study of annular changes during the cardiac cycle: technique and initial results

The authors have developed a method of three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the mitral annuli using two intersecting sets of scan planes of magnetic resonance images, that is, four-chamber-view (FCV) images and long axis scan images, the plane of which is perpendicular to the FCV scan plane. The annuli reconstructed using these two sets of images, are superimposed by aligning two pairs of intersecting lines. The gap between superimposed annular images is further compensated with parallel translation of the images including the vertebral bodies, in order to precisely superimpose each annuli. From the superimposed annular contours, a composite annular contour is obtained