Two Methods for Analysis of Dynamic Scintigraphic Images of the Heart

Kamel Hamrouni and Nawrès Khlifa

Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Tunis (ENIT, Tunisia)

Abstract: Dynamic scintigraphic images allow functional exploration of the considered organ and thus a good comprehension of the pathological phenomenon. There are two different approaches to analyse such images series; by following the activity of a region of interest or by computing parametric images. Both approaches may require the detection of an area of interest. This paper presents two methods of analysis of synchronised dynamic scintigraphic images of the heart based on an automatic detection of the left ventricle. The first method follows the time activity of the left ventricle and computes the ventricular ejection fraction. The second method computes a parametric image called “covariance image” where each pixel represents a covariance coefficient that indicates if the corresponding point in the heart and the reference area evolve or not in the same direction. The results of the application of the two methods on several dynamic images are presented and discussed.  .

Keywords: Image processing, segmentation, scintigraphic image, covariance, time activity curve.   

Received November 10, 2004; accepted February 19, 2005