Open AccessComputer enhanced digital angiography
Author(s) -
Vas R.,
Diamond G. A.,
Levisman J. A.,
Nakano F. H.,
Neidorf B. S.,
Rose R. M.,
Whiting J. S.,
Forrester J. S.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
clinical cardiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.263
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1932-8737
pISSN - 0160-9289
DOI - 10.1002/clc.4960050502
Subject(s) - medicine , ventricle , contrast (vision) , peripheral , nuclear medicine , angiography , image quality , contrast medium , radiology , artificial intelligence , computer science , image (mathematics)
Summary: A new computer image enhancement technique was employed on cardiac images of 10 dogs and 7 patients to demonstrate the feasibility of an on‐line automatic delineation of the left ventricular endocardial silhouette with a peripheral venous injection of contrast material while simultaneously reducing the x‐ray dosage. This technique employs a very fast analog‐to‐digital conversion system capable of digitizing on‐line video frames. By storing and continuously updating the first 30 video frames and then subtracting each incoming frame from this memory, most of the background is eliminated leaving only the contrast filled ventricle. Using calibrated densitometric measurements, we found that iodine concentrations in the human left ventricle following venous injection of 40 ml Renografin®‐76 (25 ml/s), peaked at 4.3±0.3 mg/ml (mean±SD) compared to 14.8±0.8 mg/ml following direct injection of 40 ml at 13 ml/s (p<0.001). The computer enhanced venous‐injected images had an optical contrast 14 times greater than that of the unenhanced direct left ventric‐ulogram. This increase in optical contrast provided unambiguous subjective definition of the endocardial borders. This technique is applicable to both central and peripheral contrst injection whereby high quality images can be obtained at approximately 98% reduction in radiation (5 mA, 65–85 kV), allowing performance of serial studies.