Novel time-varying 3D display of wall motion, strain, strain rate and torsion for LV function assessment

Abstract

Advanced post processing of the standard acquisitions of echocardiographic data (i.e. 3 parallel short-axis views and 3 rotational long axis views) results in a total of 72 time-varying traces of segmental linear strains and 18 traces of segmental rotational data. If one separates the signal into endo, mid, and epicardial myocardial layers, a staggering 246 time-varying traces are available. The synthesis of this amount of data is extremely difficult. Our goal was to develop tools that can visualize this complex dataset in a single representation and use these tools to assess LV function in subjects to examine characteristic patterns.