AUTONOMOUS EPICARDIAL AND ENDOCARDIAL BOUNDARY DETECTION IN ECHOCARDIOGRAPHIC SHORT-AXIS IMAGES

An autonomous endocardial and epicardial boundary detection (ABD) meth od is reported. One hundred ten cycles from 55 clinical studies were s elected retrospectively. Image sequences were digitized at 512 x 480 p ixel resolution. The point-by-paint boundary positions of the ABD and the areas enclosed were compared with positions and enclosed areas dra wn by three independent observers. Correlation coefficients for epicar dial end-diastolic (ED) and end-systolic (ES) areas, endocardial ED an d ES areas, muscle area, and fractional area change were 0.970, 0.976, 0.951, 0.985, 0.887, and 0.878, respectively. Bland-Altman analysis s howed negligible biases with standard deviations comparable to those o f the observers. The mean difference between the ABD border and the co nsensus observer border positions in 64 directions falls within the me an range of interobserver border positions, suggesting that shape is a lso well defined by the ABD.