Automatized Evaluation of the Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction from Echocardiographic Images Using Graph Cut

In this paper, we present a fast and interactive graph cut method for 3D segmentation of the endocardial wall of the left ventricle (LV) given 3D echocardiographic images. This is a challenging task due to the poor contrast and the low signal-to-noise ratio typical of echocardiographic images. The method is carried out in 3 steps. First, 3D sampling of the LV cavity is made in a spherical-cylindrical coordinate system. Then, a gradient-based energy term is assigned to each voxel, some of which being given an infinite energy to make sure the resulting volume passes through key anatomical points. Then, a graph-cut procedure provides delineation of the endocardial surface. Results obtained on …