Three-dimensional reconstruction of multiplane transesophageal rotational scanning echocardiography

ABSTRACT The present paper studies the method of 3D reconstruction of multiplane transesophageal rotational scanning echocardiography. According to the characteristic of rotational scanning echocardiography, a direct matching interpolation method is exploited to reconstruct regular volume data from distributed ultrasound scanning points. The whole system is developed and clinical ultrasound data is tested for this method. The volume rendering results show that the proposed method is valid and effective. At last, the possibility of functional reconstruction based on tissue Doppler imaging is explored. Keywords: 3D reconstruction; Multiplane transesophageal echocardiography; Volume rendering; Rotational scanning 1. INTRODUCTION Transesophageal 3D echocardiography is an evolving ultrasound imaging technique. It can show the inherent tri-dimensional modality of cardiac structure and help clinician understand the anatomical structure of pathological change and its spatial relationship with other proximate structures. Hence, 3D echocardiography will play an increasing role in the future of medical imaging [1, 2, 3, 4]. After long time experimentation, 3D ultrasound has been put into practical use and clinical evaluation. Now there are two approaches in the implement of 3D ultrasound system: one is to manufacture dedicated, specialized 3D ultrasound devices; the other is to upgrade from already existing 2D systems [1, 2, 3, 4]. The first one involves the core technique of ultrasound transducer, so it’s very complicated and expensive. On the contrary, the later one is cheap and easy to popularize because it can protect investment of existing 2D ultrasound systems. But up to now, there are several reported drawbacks that heavily hindered the application of 3D ultrasound imaging system. The quality of original ultrasound images is quite poor compared with CT or MRI. What’s more, the spatial interpolation of 2D ultrasound images is significantly more difficult than that of CT or MRI and requires the physician to possess interpretational experience. But the appearance of multiplane transesophageal transducer gives a great opportunity to overcome those drawbacks. It can be leaded into body from esophagus and locates in some organs nearby the heart where it can scan the heart in low span, so the quality of original images is quite good. The transducer can rotate in 360 degrees so as to acquire a series of rotary scanning images, and the spatial relationship of those images is fixed. In this paper, we will study the basic 3D reconstruction algorithm of transesophageal rotational scanning echocardiography, and exploit the appropriate method of filtering, extraction, interpolation and visualization. Then the corresponsive 3D reconstruction software system is developed and tested for the clinical experiments. At last, we will explore the possibility of functional reconstruction based on tissue Doppler imaging.