Computer Analysis of Heart Motion from Two-Dimensional Echocardiograms

In two-dimensional echocardiography the study of the motion of the heart, especially of the left ventricle, is of central interest. Although the clinician can see this motion on real-time two-dimensional echocardiograms, its quantification can still be greatly improved. This paper presents and tests a computer method to quantify the motion of the heart from digitized image sequences. This method computes on every point of an image the two-dimensional velocity vector which characterizes its motion from this image to the next. This approach has the following advantages: 1) border recognition algorithms are no longer needed, 2) motion is not restricted to its radial component, and 3) motion information is available on every point of the image.