DEVICE, METHOD AND PROGRAM FOR EXTRACTING INFORMATION ON LEFT VENTRICULAR WALL

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable automatic extraction of the shape of a left-ventricular cavity from an animation file of a four-cavity cross-sectional image to improve convenience in comprehensive diagnostics of the left ventricle by ultrasonic diagnostics.SOLUTION: The initial contour of a left-ventricular inside wall is extracted based on luminance information from a four-cavity cross-sectional image which is an ultrasonic tomographic image of the heart. Motion vector computation, intersection computation, centroid computation and extraction of a left-ventricular inside cavity region are performed with respect to the initial contour to extract an approximate ellipse. Characteristic points adjacent to a valve ring part are extracted from the approximate ellipse. First and second valve ring parts are specified based on the luminance average value of the four-cavity cross-sectional image in the region including the extracted characteristic points. The characteristic points of the left-ventricular wall between the coordinates of the first and second valve ring parts are extracted. Spline interpolation of the respective coordinates of the characteristic points of the left-ventricular wall is performed, and also the contour points of the left-ventricular wall are extracted by connecting the coordinates of the first and second valve ring parts by straight lines.