Abstract
A new motion tracking method for local myocardial tissue using M-mode ultrasound signals is proposed. This method is applicable to the quantitative assessment of myocardial performance in clinics. M-mode echocardiograms are widely used in clinics for myocardial diagnosis. However, physicians are required to employ tedious and time-consuming diagnostic protocols. In the proposed method, the myocardial motion in M-mode echocardiograms is automatically tracked based on dynamic programming (DP) optimization. The method consists of two main stages. In the first stage, the correlation weighted mean algorithm estimates the velocity field in the myocardial wall. In the second stage, the instantaneous displacement of a set of tracking points is calculated from the estimated velocity field, and the DP tracking method tracks the motion of the tracking points. The experimental results obtained using clinical ultrasound data demonstrate that the proposed DP tracking method can provide higher performance in myocardial motion tracking as compared to other methods.
