Validation and development of a new automatic algorithm for time resolved segmentation of the left ventricle in magnetic resonance imaging

INTRODUCTION Manual delineation of the left ventricle is clinical standard for quantification of cardiovascular magnetic resonance images despite being time consuming and observer dependent. Previous automatic methods generally do not account for one major contributor to stroke volume, the long-axis motion. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop and validate an automatic algorithm for time-resolved segmentation covering the whole left ventricle, including basal slices affected by long-axis motion. METHODS Ninety subjects imaged with a cine balanced steady state free precession sequence were included in the study (training set n = 40, test set n = 50). Manual delineation was reference standard and second observer analysis was performed in a subset (n = 25). The automatic algorithm uses deformable model with expectation-maximization, followed by automatic removal of papillary muscles and detection of the outflow tract. RESULTS The mean differences between automatic segmentation and manual delineation were EDV -11 mL, ESV 1 mL, EF -3%, and LVM 4 g in the test set. CONCLUSIONS The automatic LV segmentation algorithm reached accuracy comparable to interobserver for manual delineation, thereby bringing automatic segmentation one step closer to clinical routine. The algorithm and all images with manual delineations are available for benchmarking.