Quantitative assessment of the infarct transmurality using delayed contrast enhanced magnetic resonance images: description and validation

The extent and degree of myocardial injury after an ischemic event are strong predictors of patient's outcome. After acute infarction, delayed contrast enhancement magnetic resonance imaging allows clinicians to distinguish between viable and non-viable myocardium and can delineate with high precision the infarcted tissue. The aim of this study is to provide a quantitative method based on the fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm to assess the location and the extent of the infarcted area. Segmental infarct trasmurality was visually assessed on a 5-point scale for the 288 segments. The agreement between visual and quantitative analyses was good: 84% of the segments were categorized similarly by quantitative and visual analyses