| dc.description.abstract |
<p>In the United States, heart failure is a leading cause of hospitalization. The
medical industry places great emphasis on diagnosing heart disease through cardiac
metrics like ejection fraction. Left ventricular ejection fraction is a commonly
used diagnostic indicator for heart efficiency and is measured with echocardiography
through different volume calculation techniques. However, ejection fraction results
can drastically vary from one examiner to another. Generally cardiologists still
give ejection fraction measurements a plus or minus 10 percent error range. </p><p>A
program developed at Duke called 4DViz is robust enough for users to process 3D ultrasound
data. 4DViz allows examiners to determine heart chamber volumes by constructing a
surface model over an imaged heart chamber with many mouse click inputs. Through
4DViz programming, a viable approach for calculating ejection fraction is attempted
in this thesis. Using feature tracking, surface drawing, and voxel filling, the new
approach aims to reduce examiner input and improve ejection fraction consistency.
Water filled balloons were used to calibrate the algorithm's parameters. In testing,
several volunteers were asked to use the 4DViz. Their results are compared to volume
measurements where user input was standard. The results show promise and may remove
some of the inconsistency behind ejection fraction measurements.</p>
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