Vortical Features for Myocardial Rotation Assessment in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy using Cardiac Tagged Magnetic Resonance

Publication date: Available online 15 March 2018
Source:Medical Image Analysis
Author(s): Santiago Sanz-Estébanez, Lucilio Cordero-Grande, Teresa Sevilla, Ana Revilla-Orodea, Rodrigo de Luis-García, Marcos Martín-Fernández, Carlos Alberola-López
Left ventricular rotational motion is a feature of normal and diseased cardiac function. However, classical torsion and twist measures rely on the definition of a rotational axis which may not exist. This paper reviews global and local rotation descriptors of myocardial motion and introduces new curl-based (vortical) features built from tensorial magnitudes, intended to provide better comprehension about fibrotic tissue characteristics mechanical properties. Fifty-six cardiomyopathy patients and twenty-two healthy volunteers have been studied using tagged magnetic resonance by means of harmonic phase analysis. Rotation descriptors are built, with no assumption about a regular geometrical model, from different approaches. The extracted vortical features have been tested by means of a sequential cardiomyopathy classification procedure; they have proven useful for the regional characterization of the left ventricular function by showing great separability not only between pathologic and healthy patients but also, and specifically, between heterogeneous phenotypes within cardiomyopathies.

Graphical abstract

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