USING MATHEMATICAL MORPHOLOGY TO DETERMINE LEFT-VENTRICULAR CONTOURS

The aim of this study is to investigate the use of mathematical morpho logy for the determination of left ventricular contours in scintigraph ic images using multigated radionuclide angiography. We have developed a completely automatic method that first restores the image with a Wi ener filter, then finds the region where the left ventricle is contain ed, and finally segments the left ventricle contour and a background z one. The contours depend on the values of the parameters that appear i n the mathematical morphology method, which are related to the height and the slope of the count distribution. Results obtained with this me thod are compared with the contours and the background zones outlined by experts on the basis of the number of counts. We study the values o f the parameters with which the optimum correlation is obtained.