neonatal echocardiographic images.
Congenital heart disease involves some abnormality in the blood vessel
structures connecting to the heart or in the heart itself that has been
present since birth. The precipitous change in neonatal hemodynamics
when the blood circulation reverses at birth can result in a sudden
change in the condition of a subject with congenital heart disease, so
rapid diagnosis is important.
An experienced doctor would be capable of making a diagnosis from the
echocardiogram images received, based on a mental image of the 3-D
structure of the heart. However, the expertise and experience are needed
to understand the 3-D cardiovascular structure from the echocardiogram
images. It would be extremely difficult for most of medical staffs
involved in the treatment, such as the surgeon performing the operation,
to gain an accurate understanding of the patient’s condition from the
echocardiogram images. At present, cardiovascular specialists brief
surgeons and other staffs on the patient’s condition using 2-D images or
diagrams. However, there is no efficient way to communicate the
condition of an individual patient with congenital heart disease and it
is difficult to gain a completely shared understanding.
We mainly focused on the expression in a 3-D format of the disease state
as seen in a mental image by a experienced doctor. With our developed
system, medical doctors can interactively construct patient-specific
heart and great vessels models within about 5 minutes, and share the
complex topology and the shape information. In order to facilitate
interactivity, we use novel data structures which are different from the
surface-mesh structures.
The proposed system allows the expression of the congenital heart
disease condition as diagnosed by specialists from echocardiographic
images. This is expected to facilitate a shared understanding among
specialists, healthcare staff, patients and their families. This is also
useful for medical education.
