3-Dimensional Ultrasound Elasticity Imaging for Quantitative Cardiac Mechanical Property Assessment: A Numerical Approach

Quantitative assessment of the cardiac tissue mechanical property or contractility is essential for the prognosis and treatment of various cardiac diseases such as myocardial infarction, pulmonary hypertension, and heart failure. Current evaluation methods are either invasive or limited, mainly due to complex 3-dimensional (3D) geometry and deformation of a heart. 2D imaging techniques assume erroneous planar geometry and deformations, while available 3D imaging techniques have limited functional assessment. Correlation-based 3D ultrasound (US) elasticity imaging (UEI) provides both anatomical and functional information such as mechanical property change of the cardiac walls, which is important for diagnosis and monitoring of the treatment. Using finite element (FE) techniques, one and two ellipsoid chamber cardiac mechanical models were developed, and combined with 3D US radio frequency (RF) data generation program. 3D UEI on the synthesized 3D US volume images were quantitatively analyzed and compared with 2D UEI.