3-DIMENSIONAL DISPLAYS OF LEFT-VENTRICULAR EPICARDIAL SURFACE FROM STANDARD CARDIAC SPECT PERFUSION QUANTIFICATION TECHNIQUES

Two methods for generating left ventricular epicardial surface from SP ECT perfusion tomograms are described and validated. Both methods use the locations of the maximal reconstructed count values determined fro m a perfusion quantification procedure as a basis for generating surfa ces. Methods: The first method fits circular contours, which are perpe ndicular to the long-axis, to the points obtained from perfusion quant ification. The second method applies median and linear filters to the points to remove noise but maintain the basic shape of the surface. Bo th models are validated against an automatic technique and against the user-traced surfaces of both the perfusion image and an MR image of t he same patient. Results: The median-filtered model was found to be cl oser to the standard surfaces than the circular model in all cases, an d 85% of the points on the median-filtered surfaces were within one SP ECT pixel length of the hand-traced MR surfaces. Conclusion: Accurate, three-dimensional left ventricular epicardial surfaces can be generat ed quickly and easily from already existing perfusion quantification s oftware. The resulting images may be useful for realistic displays of ventricular size, shape and the three-dimensional distribution of perf usion.