Method and system for automatic quantification of aortic valve function from 4D computed tomography data using a physiological model

An apparatus for generating a dynamic aortic valve model, comprising:

• means for receiving a 4D cardiac image sequence comprising a plurality of frames, each frame comprising 3D image data;
• means for determining an initial estimate for a physiological aortic valve model in at least one reference frame of the plurality of frames based on anatomical landmarks in the at least one reference frame;
• means for refining the initial estimate for the physiological aortic valve model in the at least one reference frame using boundary detection to generate a final estimate for the physiological aortic valve model in the at least one reference frame;
• and
• means for generating a dynamic aortic valve model by estimating the physiological aortic valve model for remaining frames of the plurality of frames based on the final estimate for the physiological aortic valve model in the at least one reference frame.

A computer readable medium encoded with computer executable instructions for generating a dynamic aortic valve model, the computer executable instructions defining steps comprising:

• receiving a 4D cardiac image sequence comprising a plurality of frames, each frame comprising 3D image data;
• determining an initial estimate for a physiological aortic valve model in at least one reference frame of the plurality of frames based on anatomical landmarks in the at least one reference frame;
• refining the initial estimate for the physiological aortic valve model in the at least one reference frame using boundary detection to generate a final estimate for the physiological aortic valve model in the at least one reference frame;
• and
• generating a dynamic aortic valve model by estimating the physiological aortic valve model for remaining frames of the plurality of frames based on the final estimate for the physiological aortic valve model in the at least one reference frame.