Cardiac diseases and conduction disorders are associated with stroke, heart failure and sudden cardiac death and are a major health concern worldwide. In the US alone, more than 14 million people suffer from heart rhythm disorders. Current mapping and characterization techniques in the clinic involve invasive procedures, which are time-consuming, costly, and may involve ionizing radiation. In this dissertation, we introduce Electromechanical Wave Imaging (EWI) as a non-invasive, ultrasound-based treatment planning tool for pre-procedure characterization and assessment of arrhythmia in the clinic. In particular, standard EWI processing methods for mapping the electromechanical wave (EW), i.e. the onset of the mechanical activity following the depolarization of the heart, are described and detailed. Next, validation of EWI is performed with 3D electromechanical mapping and the EW propagation is shown to follow the electrical activation in all four chambers of the heart. Demonstration of the value of EWI for the characterization of cardiac arrhythmia is accomplished in vivo in a large animal model. First, EWI is shown capable of localizing the earliest region of activation in the ventricles during pacing from a standard pacemaker lead, as well as during pacing from a novel biological pacemaker. Repeatability is also demonstrated between consecutive cardiac cycle during normal sinus rhythm and during pacing. Then, in the atria, we demonstrate that EWI is capable of accurately identifying focal sources while pacing from several locations in both the left and right atria. In addition to being capable of localizing the focal source, EWI is also shown capable of differentiating between endocardial and epicardial focal sources. Finally, it is shown that EWI can correctly identify regions of infarction and monitor formation of infarcts over several days, after ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery of canine hearts. Novel processing techniques aimed at extracting quantitative parameters from EWI estimates are then developed and implemented. Details of the implementation of processing methods for estimating the velocity of the EW propagation are presented, and a study of the EW velocity values in a canine heart before and after infarct formation is conducted. Electromechanical cycle length mapping (ECLM), which is aimed at extracting local rates of electromechanical activation in the heart, is then introduced and its implementation detailed. ECLM is subsequently validated in a paced canine heart in vivo. Finally, initial clinical feasibility is demonstrated. First, in the study of treatment of chaotic arrhythmia such as in the case of atrial fibrillation patients undergoing direct current cardioversion, ECLM is shown to be able to confirm acute treatment success. Then, the clinical value of EWI in the electrophysiology lab as a treatment planning tool for the characterization of focal arrhythmia is shown in ventricular tachycardia and Wolff-Parkinson-White patients. EWI is currently only a step away from real-world clinical application. As a non-invasive, ultrasound-based imaging modality, EWI is capable of providing relevant insights into the origins of an arrhythmia and has the potential to position itself in the clinic as a uniquely valuable pre-procedure planning tool for the non-invasive characterization of focal arrhythmias.

Wang Mei. / "July 2002." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-233). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Medicine / Master / Doctor of Medicine

[Truncated abstract. Formulae and special characters in this field can only be approximated. See PDF version for accurate reproduction.] Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been developed over the past two and a half decades to enable non-invasive assessment of soft tissues in the human body. MRI provides images of the tissues in the body with intensities weighted by nuclear magnetic relaxation properties of the tissue. Recent advances have utilised MRI as a quantitative tool with the nuclear magnetic relaxation rates in tissues being accurately quantified. One clinical application of quantitative MRI has been in the quantification of body iron stores in the management of iron overload diseases. MR images also contain information about the spatial variations of relaxation rates, which could be clinically useful. In the quantification of liver iron concentrations, proton transverse relaxation rate (R2) maps have been used not only to quantify iron concentrations but also to visualise the spatial variations. The work in this thesis addresses the use of spatial information from proton transverse relaxation rate maps in clinical practice. The quantitative spatial information contained in these maps is analysed in two clinically important settings, namely the non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis and the assessment of magnetic susceptibility artefacts in cardiac proton transverse relaxometry. Spatial distributions of liver R2 maps were quantified using texture measures based on grey-tone spatial dependence (GTSD) matrices. Some of these measures gave a statistically significant distinction between patients with minimal or no fibrosis and those with fibrosis or cirrhosis. Distinction of fibrosis using this technique was enhanced in subjects with iron overload diseases, suggesting that iron is required as a contrast agent for sufficient sensitivity of image texture to fibrosis. In subjects with low tissue iron concentrations, tissue hydration was observed to also have an influence on R2. In patients with end stage liver disease, a model combining tissue iron concentration and tissue hydration gave a better prediction of R2 than iron concentration alone. A model combining several of the texture measures was developed using logistic regression and was found to improve distinction of high-grade fibrosis from low-grade fibrosis. For the distinction of F0 and F1 fibrosis stages (as assessed by the METAVIR system) from F2 and above the area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.75. As this model was developed using a cohort of subjects with varying pathologies, the performance of the model is expected to improve if only iron-loaded subjects are considered.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Skrinjar, Oskar; Committee Member: Oshinski, John; Committee Member: Tannenbaum, Allen; Committee Member: Vela, Patricio; Committee Member: Yezzi, Anthony

No description available.

The study of myocardial motion is essential for understanding the normal heart function and developing new treatments for cardiovascular diseases. The goals of my PhD research is to develop new methods for cardiac deformation recovery from 3D magnetic resonance (MR) images. The main contribution of my work is that the proposed methods are guaranteed to generate exactly or nearly incompressible deformations. This is a desirable property since the myocardium has been shown to be close to incompressible. From the recovered deformation, one can directly compute a number of clinically useful parameters, including strains. The first method for 3D deformation recovery of the left ventricular wall (LV) from anatomical cine MRI is based on a deformable model that is incompressible. This method is not suitable for the deformation recovery of the biventricular wall. The second method is based on a 3D deformable model that is nearly incompressible. The model uses a matrix-valued radial basis function to represent divergence free displacement fields, which is a first order approximation of incompressibility. This representation allows for deformation modeling of arbitrary topologies with a relatively small number of parameters, which is suitable for representing the motion of the multi-chamber structure of the heart. The two methods have similar performance. A method to obtain a smooth and accurate surface of the myocardium wall is needed to illustrate the cardiac deformation recovery. I present a novel method for the generation of endocardial and epicardial surface meshes. The same algorithm is independently used to generate the surface meshes of the epicardium and endocardium of the four cardiac chambers. It provides smooth meshes despite the strong voxel anisotropy, which is not the case for the marching cubes algorithm. Phase velocity MRI is an acquisition technique that contains more information about the myocardial motion than cine MRI. I present a method to interpolate the velocity vector field in a phase velocity MRI sequence. The method uses an interpolation model that provides a continuous divergence free velocity vector field, which means that the corresponding deformation is incompressible.

O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a dose efetiva de radiação nos exames de CCTA através dos métodos Prospectivo e Retrospectivo do ECG. A coleta de dados foi realizada na Clínica Sabedotti, em Ponta Grossa – PR, em um equipamento General Electric modelo VCT XT, de 64 linhas de detecção. A dose efetiva foi mensurada para 30 casos, selecionados aleatoriamente do Picture Archival and Communication System – PACS, Arquivamento e Comunicação de Imagens, a partir do Produto Dose Comprimento (DLP) reportado pelo equipamento para cada exame e pelo fator de conversão (EDLP) definido pela Comissão Europeia para região cardíaca (EDLP = 0,014). Os resultados apontaram diferenças expressivas quanto à dose de radiação entregue ao paciente de acordo com o método de aquisição empregado, Retrospectivo ou Prospectivo do ECG. / The aim of this study was to evaluate the effective dose received by patients undergoing CCTA in both acquisition methods in the period June 1st to October 30th, 2013. Data collection was performed at the Clínica Sabedotti in Ponta Grossa/PR, with General Electric Equipment VCT XT, 64 detections lines. The effective dose was measured from the thirty cases randomly selected of Picture Archival and Communication System – PACS, reported by Dose Lenght Product (DLP) equipment for each examination and the conversion factor (EDLP) set by the European Commission for cardiac region (EDLP = 0.014). The results showed significant differences in radiation dose delivered to the patient according to the employee acquisition method, Retrospective or Prospective of ECG.

O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a dose efetiva de radiação nos exames de CCTA através dos métodos Prospectivo e Retrospectivo do ECG. A coleta de dados foi realizada na Clínica Sabedotti, em Ponta Grossa – PR, em um equipamento General Electric modelo VCT XT, de 64 linhas de detecção. A dose efetiva foi mensurada para 30 casos, selecionados aleatoriamente do Picture Archival and Communication System – PACS, Arquivamento e Comunicação de Imagens, a partir do Produto Dose Comprimento (DLP) reportado pelo equipamento para cada exame e pelo fator de conversão (EDLP) definido pela Comissão Europeia para região cardíaca (EDLP = 0,014). Os resultados apontaram diferenças expressivas quanto à dose de radiação entregue ao paciente de acordo com o método de aquisição empregado, Retrospectivo ou Prospectivo do ECG. / The aim of this study was to evaluate the effective dose received by patients undergoing CCTA in both acquisition methods in the period June 1st to October 30th, 2013. Data collection was performed at the Clínica Sabedotti in Ponta Grossa/PR, with General Electric Equipment VCT XT, 64 detections lines. The effective dose was measured from the thirty cases randomly selected of Picture Archival and Communication System – PACS, reported by Dose Lenght Product (DLP) equipment for each examination and the conversion factor (EDLP) set by the European Commission for cardiac region (EDLP = 0.014). The results showed significant differences in radiation dose delivered to the patient according to the employee acquisition method, Retrospective or Prospective of ECG.

In developing countries, acute respiratory infections (ARIs) are responsible for two million deaths per year. Most victims are children who are less than 5 years old. Pneumonia kills 5000 children per day. The statistics for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are even more alarming. According to a 2009 report from the World Health Organization (WHO), CVDs kill 17 million people per year. In many resource-poor parts of the world such as India and China, many people are unable to access cardiologists, pulmonologists, and other specialists. Hence, low skilled health professionals are responsible for screening people for ARIs and CVDs in these areas. For example, in the rural areas of the Philippines, there is only one doctor for every 10,000 people. By contrast, the United States has one doctor for every 500 Americans. Due to advances in technology, it is now possible to use a smartphone for audio recording, signal processing, and machine learning. In my thesis, I have developed an Android application named Smart Auscultation. Auscultation is a process in which physicians listen to heart and lung sounds to diagnose disorders. Cardiologists spend years mastering this skill. The Smart Auscultation application is capable of recording and classifying heart sounds, and can be used by public or clinical health workers. This application can detect abnormal heart sounds with up to 92-98% accuracy. In addition, the application can record, but not yet classify, lung sounds. This application will be able to help save thousands of lives by allowing anyone to identify abnormal heart and lung sounds.