thesis
Quantitative 3·D Echocardiography of The Heart and The Coronary Vessels
- Publication date
- 1 January 1998
- Publisher
- 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.