R. Pilgram, K. Fritscher (Austria), T. Fletcher (USA), and R. Schubert (Austria)
Cardiac Modeling, Cardiac Image Analysis, StatisticalShape Analysis, Medial Representation, Multi Objects
Heart diseases result in or from morphologic variations; therefore analysis of shape variability is important for diagnostic classification and understanding of biological processes. In a pilot study we analyzed 16 individual human hearts, the common shape of the main chambers and of the combined structure including their interindividual variations for a fixed time phase. The electrocardiogram triggered MRI scans were segmented semi-automatically to derive an object ensemble containing the left and right ventricle, the left and right atria, and the pericardium for each individual heart. These objects were modeled using a medial based representation method providing interindividual shape correspondence due to object intrinsic coordinate system. Based on this concept of correspondence a common shape model was generated both for the single object and for the object ensemble. The interindividual variations were analyzed using an extended PCA method showing that almost 80% of variations are lying within the first 5 modes for both, the single and the combined structures. These so far results promise the method to be a big value in quantifying interindividual shape changes of clinical relevant populations and may serve as a potential tool for segmentation, classification, and diagnosis.
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