Identification of reperfused infarcted myocardium from high frequency intracardiac ultrasound images using homodyned K distribution

Myocardial structural changes caused by infarction/reperfusion may result in increased concentration of scatterers and variation of scatterer arrangement in ultrasound imaging. Homodyned K (HD_K) distribution is employed in this paper to model the backscattered signal from both normal and reperfused infarcted myocardium and is used to characterize them. Using HD_K distribution, in vivo demodulated RF data (8.5 MHz) from anterior myocardial wall, as imaged from both left and fight ventricle, at baseline and after infarction/reperfusion, were analyzed. Significant increase of scatterer density in reperfused infarcted myocardium has been found compared to the normal myocardium. We concluded that HD_K distribution has potential to distinguish reperfused infarcted myocardium from normal using high frequency ultrasound imaging, irrespective of LV or RV data acquisition.