Introduction: The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of a set of parameters in characterizing simulated infarcts in left ventricular (LV) models with variations in size and transmural extent.
Material and methods: The deformation of the LV models with different infarct sizes was simulated using the Finite Element Method. These simulations provided meshes that were used to generate synthetic ultrasonic data within the FIELD II package. The strain components (longitudinal and circumferential) were then estimated over small subsegments of the of segments 7 and 12 (according to 17-segment left ventricle segmentation standard proposed by the American Heart Association - AHA17), using a hierarchical block matching method. The strain maps obtained were utilized to calculate the Strain Drop Factor (SDF) maps, which represent the percentage ratio of strain observed in the subsegments of the studied model to that observed in the healthy model. Infarct segmentation was performed using these maps, and various parameters were derived, including Infarct Cross-Section Area (ICSA), relative ICSA, Transmurality Ratio (TR), Mean Infarct Transmurality (MIT), strain drop factor in the infarcted region (SDFi), and Strain Contrast (SC).
Results: The estimates of ICSA, SC, MIT, and SDFI showed good repeatability and demonstrated the ability to provide a quantitative assessment of the size and transmural extent of the infarcts.
Conclusions: The study findings suggest that the evaluated parameters, including ICSA, SC, MIT, and SDFI, can be reliably used to assess the size and transmural extent of infarcts. These parameters offer a quantitative approach for characterizing infarcts based on strain analysis and have the potential to contribute to the diagnosis and evaluation of myocardial infarctions.
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