Method and system for determining the volume of epicardial fat from volumetric images, and corresponding computer program

摘要

What is described is a method for determining the volume of epicardial fat of a heart, comprising:
- acquiring a plurality of volumetric image data representing the heart;
- morphologically characterizing a volume of interest represented by the volumetric image data, including identifying a predetermined number of reference contours (P i ) of the heart;
- estimating the epicardial surface, ˆ‘, according to a three-dimensional series expansion of vector spherical harmonic functions based on the reference contours (P i ); and
- determining the volume of epicardial fat based on the voxels which are located inside the estimated epicardial surface, ˆ‘, and which have a grey level within a predetermined range, characteristic of fatty tissue.