Cardiac Motion Analysis by Temporal Flow Graphs

TL;DR

This paper introduces Temporal Flow Graphs (TFGs), a novel method for analyzing cardiac motion in ultrasound sequences by representing point movements over time, aiding in detecting irregularities and localizing landmarks.

Contribution

The paper presents TFGs as a new graphical representation for cardiac motion analysis, enabling periodicity detection and landmark localization from ultrasound data.

Findings

TFGs effectively detect motion irregularities.

TFGs enable localization of anatomical landmarks.

Method works on real and synthetic data.

Abstract

Cardiac motion analysis from B-mode ultrasound sequence is a key task in assessing the health of the heart. The paper proposes a new methodology for cardiac motion analysis based on the temporal behaviour of points of interest on the myocardium. We define a new signal called the Temporal Flow Graph (TFG) which depicts the movement of a point of interest over time. It is a graphical representation derived from a flow field and describes the temporal evolution of a point. We prove that TFG for an object undergoing periodic motion is also periodic. This principle can be utilized to derive both global and local information from a given sequence. We demonstrate this for detecting motion irregularities at the sequence, as well as regional levels on real and synthetic data. A coarse localisation of anatomical landmarks such as centres of left/right cavities and valve points is also demonstrated using TFGs.