Automatic segmentation of echocardiographic Left Ventricular images by windows adaptive thresholds

The extraction of cardiac borders, particularly, the ones related to the left ventricle (LV), is an important goal to estimate some indices of great clinical value, such as, the thickness of the wall, ejection fraction, and regional wall motion, as the most used to assess the LV function. The accuracy of those indices depends on the correct LV boundary extraction. In this work, two LV segmentation algorithms are implemented: differencing method applied to the intensity profiles and the windows adaptive thresholds by Otsu algorithm. Results provided by the two techniques will be analysed considering factors like accuracy in the boundary extraction, effect of some artifacts like papillary muscles, intra-cavity structures, and valves, epicardial border identification, processing time. Finally, the matching between the automatic border tracing and the true anatomical border, extracted by an expert, is analysed.