The use of echocardiographic image processing in detecting rejection after cardiac transplantation

Several processing methods have been tested on ultrasonic images in an attempt to arrive at an objective diagnosis based upon echocardiographic examinations. In a previous study we showed that texture classification of video echocardiograms provides good results. We have pursued this research with the aim of reducing the results of image evaluation to numeric values. If such a value could reflect the patient's myocardial state, we would be able to estimate the degree of rejection after cardiac transplantation or detect rejection in an early stage. We therefore computed several texture parameters of radio frequency ultrasonic heart images and also analyzed the cine-loops of video images in an attempt to estimate myocardial contractility