Three-dimensional displays of left ventricular epicardial surface from standard cardiac SPECT perfusion quantification techniques

Abstract

Two methods for generating left ventricular epicardial surface from SPECT perfusion tomograms are described and validated. Both methods use the locations of the maximal reconstructed count values determined from a perfusion quantification procedure as a basis for generating surfaces.

Methods: The first method fits circular contours, which are perpendicular to the long-axis, to the points obtained from perfusion quantification. The second method applies median and linear filters to the points to remove noise but maintain the basic shape of the surface. Both models are validated against an automatic technique and against the user-traced surfaces of both the perfusion image and an MR image of the same patient.

Results: The median-filtered model was found to be closer to the standard surfaces than the circular model in all cases, and 85% of the points on the median-filtered surfaces were within one SPECT pixel length of the hand-traced MR surfaces.

Conclusion: Accurate, three-dimensional left ventricular epicardial surfaces can be generated quickly and easily from already existing perfusion quantification software. The resulting images may be useful for realistic displays of ventricular size, shape and the three-dimensional distribution of perfusion.