Quantitative 3·D Echocardiography of The Heart and The Coronary Vessels

The recognition of the existence of ultrasound is credited to L. Spallanzani (1729- 1799). In recent years, ultrasound has been used as an imaging modality in medicine. I. Edler and C.H. Hertz produced the first ultrasound images of the heart in 1953. In the 1960's great progress was made in the clinical application of ultrasound when real-time two-dimensional ultrasound scanners were developed. In 1968, J. Somer constructed the first electronic phased-array scanner and this technology is still the most widely used in ultrasound equipment. In 1974 F.E. Barber and colleagues produced a duplex scanner which integrated imaging with pulsed-wave Doppler measurements. C. Kasai and colleagues constmcted in 1982 the color-coded Doppler flow imaging system based on autocorrelation detection, providing a noninvasive "angiogram" simulation of normal and abnormal blood flow on a "beat-to-beat" basis. Transesophageal echocardiography became available to clinicians in 1985 due to the developments of 1. Soquet who invented the mono- and biplane electronic phased-array probel Echocardiography has become one of the most commonly used diagnostic imaging techniques in cardiology. The development of commercial 3-D echocardiographic equipment began in the early 1990's. In 1993 a technique allowing acquisition of tomographic parallel sliced data set of echocardiographic images of the heart with a lobster tail TEE probe, was 2 developed by the German based company "TomTec GmbH". The TEE probe had an imaging element which could be controlled by computer applying a stepping motor. They also developed an interface to the patient to record the respiration and R-R intervals. This allowed the acquisition of ultrasound images ECG-triggered and gated, which reduced motion artifacts caused by beat-to-beat and respiratory variations in cardiac dimensions and position. After the acquisition of a tomographic data set, the images were post-processed and with application of software interpolation algorithms, gaps in the data set could be filled. This post-processed data set could then be used to reconstruct 3-D volume rendered images of the heart. 3-D ultrasound provides cardiac images which more closely mimic actual anatomy'than 2-D cross-sectional linages, and may thus be easier to interpret.

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