4-D reconstruction of the left ventricle from a single cycle ultrasound acquisition

A new acquisition system using a fast rotating 2-D ultrasound probe is proposed to reconstruct the deformations of the left cardiac ventricle. During only one cardiac cycle, the high resolution probe acquires successive conic sections of the left ventricle. Then, assuming that the contours have been accurately detected, the set of sparse spatio-temporal data, which correspond to the successive intersection points of the moving ultrasound beam with the endocardiac wall, is spatially and temporally interpolated to estimate the continuous variation of the volume. This reconstruction is achieved through an iterative algorithm based on the harmonic 4-D model of the volume considered as a periodic multidimensional signal [1]. Results are clinically promising.