Automated analysis of three-dimensional stress echocardiography

Real-time three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound imaging has been proposed as an alternative for two-dimensional stress echocardiography for assessing myocardial dysfunction and underlying coronary artery disease. Analysis of 3D stress echocardiography is no simple task and requires considerable expertise. In this paper, we propose methods for automated analysis, which may provide a more objective and accurate diagnosis. Expert knowledge is incorporated via statistical modelling of patient data. Methods for identifying anatomical views, detecting endocardial borders, and classification of wall motion are described and shown to provide favourable results. We also present software developed especially for analysis of 3D stress echocardiography in clinical practice. Interobserver agreement in wall motion scoring is better using the dedicated software (96%) than commercially available software not dedicated for this purpose (79%). The developed tools may provide useful quantitative and objective parameters to assist the clinical expert in the diagnosis of left ventricular function

IT Infrastructure to Support the Secondary Use of Routinely Acquired Clinical Imaging Data for Research

We propose an infrastructure for the automated anonymization, extraction and processing of image data stored in clinical data repositories to make routinely acquired imaging data available for research purposes. The automated system, which was tested in the context of analyzing routinely acquired MR brain imaging data, consists of four modules: subject selection using PACS query, anonymization of privacy sensitive information and removal of facial features, quality assurance on DICOM header and image information, and quantitative imaging biomarker extraction. In total, 1,616 examinations were selected based on the following MRI scanning protocols: dementia protocol (246), multiple sclerosis protocol (446) and open question protocol (924). We evaluated the effectiveness of the infrastructure in accessing and successfully extracting biomarkers from routinely acquired clinical imaging data. To examine the validity, we compared brain volumes between patient groups with positive and negative diagnosis, according to the patient reports. Overall, success rates of image data retrieval and automatic processing were 82.5 %, 82.3 % and 66.2 % for the three protocol groups respectively, indicating that a large percentage of routinely acquired clinical imaging data can be used for brain volumetry research, despite image heterogeneity. In line with the literature, brain volumes were found to be significantly smaller (p-value <0.001) in patients with a positive diagnosis of dementia (915 ml) compared to patients with a negative diagnosis (939 ml). This study demonstrates that quantitative image biomarkers such as intracranial and brain volume can be extracted from routinely acquired clinical imaging data. This enables secondary use of clinical images for research into quantitative biomarkers at a hitherto unprecedented scale

MicroRNA networks direct neuronal development and plasticity

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) constitute a class of small, non-coding RNAs that act as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. In neurons, the functions of individual miRNAs are just beginning to emerge, and recent studies have elucidated roles for neural miRNAs at various stages of neuronal development and maturation, including neurite outgrowth, dendritogenesis, and spine formation. Notably, miRNAs regulate mRNA translation locally in the axosomal and synaptodendritic compartments, and thereby contribute to the dynamic spatial organization of axonal and dendritic structures and their function. Given the critical role for miRNAs in regulating early brain development and in mediating synaptic plasticity later in life, it is tempting to speculate that the pathology of neurological disorders is affected by altered expression or functioning of miRNAs. Here we provide an overview of recently identified mechanisms of neuronal development and plasticity involving miRNAs, and the consequences of miRNA dysregulation

Registration of multi-view apical 3D echocardiography images

Real-time three-dimensional echocardiography (RT3DE) is a non-invasive method to visualize the heart. Disadvantageously, it suffers from non-uniform image quality and a limited field of view. Image quality can be improved by fusion of multiple echocardiography images. Successful registration of the images is essential for prosperous fusion. Therefore, this study examines the performance of different methods for intrasubject registration of multi-view apical RT3DE images. A total of 14 data sets was annotated by two observers who indicated the position of the apex and four points on the mitral valve ring. These annotations were used to evaluate registration. Multi-view end-diastolic (ED) as well as end-systolic (ES) images were rigidly registered in a multi-resolution strategy. The performance of single-frame and multi-frame registration was examined. Multi-frame registration optimizes the metric for several time frames simultaneously. Furthermore, the suitability of mutual information (MI) as similarity measure was compared to normalized cross-correlation (NCC). For initialization of the registration, a transformation that describes the probe movement was obtained by manually registering five representative data sets. It was found that multi-frame registration can improve registration results with respect to single-frame registration. Additionally, NCC outperformed MI as similarity measure. If NCC was optimized in a multi-frame registration strategy including ED and ES time frames, the performance of the automatic method was comparable to that of manual registration. In conclusion, automatic registration of RT3DE images performs as good as manual registration. As registration precedes image fusion, this method can contribute to improved quality of echocardiography images. © 2011 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)