Estimation of the myocardium rotation from standard cine Magnetic Resonance Imaging sequences

Myocardium rotation and torsion are important indicators of the cardiac function. Currently, tagged Magnetic Resonance Imaging (tMRI) sequences are analyzed to estimate these parameters. Unfortunately, tMRI is not widely used in clinical practice because it prolongs the scanning time and requires sophisticated analysis software. In this work, we present a method for estimating the myocardium rotation from standard cine MRI sequences. The method is based on identifying special features, i.e. landmarks, of the intensity pattern around the myocardium borders at each timeframe. Each set of landmarks is then encoded using a string of characters that can be matched across the different timeframes. String alignment technique is used to match the characters and thus determine the inter-frame motion of each landmark. Preliminary results using dataset of three patients (apical, mid, and basal slices) indicate the potential of the method to estimate the myocardium rotation especially at late timeframes where tMRI fails due to tag fading.