Automated region selection for analysis of dynamic cardiac SPECT data

Dynamic cardiac SPECT using Tc-99m labeled teboroxime can provide kinetic parameters (washin, washout) indicative of myocardial blood flow. A time-consuming and subjective step of the data analysis is drawing regions of interest to delineate blood pool and myocardial tissue regions. The time-activity curves of the regions are then used to estimate local kinetic parameters. In this work, the appropriate regions are found automatically, in a manner similar to that used for calculating maximum count circumferential profiles in conventional static cardiac studies. The drawbacks to applying standard static circumferential profile methods are the high noise level and high liver uptake common in dynamic teboroxime studies. Searching along each ray for maxima to locate the myocardium does not typically provide useful information. Here we propose an iterative scheme in which constraints are imposed on the radii searched along each ray. The constraints are based on the shape of the time-activity curves of the circumferential profile members and on an assumption that the short axis slices are approximately circular. The constraints eliminate outliers and help to reduce the effects of noise and liver activity. Kinetic parameter estimates from the automatically generated regions were comparable to estimates from manually selected regions in dynamic canine teboroxime studies.