Left ventricle wall motion analysis during various phases of cardiac cycle from 2D-echocardiographic images

The displacement vectors of the left ventricular wall boundary from 2D echocardiographic images at the papillary muscle level in short-axis view have been obtained during seven sequential phases covering the entire cardiac cycle. The displacements with both magnitude and direction were calculated using an optical flow technique for successive pairs of images and were plotted at the diastolic boundary of the ventricular wall. These diagrams quantitatively depict the movement undergone by the ventricular wall during the different phases. The displacements calculated at various points along the wall boundary show the changes in wall motion during the entire cardiac cycle which could be utilized to detect the left ventricular functional abnormalities in various diseases.