System and method for automatic, non-invasive diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension and measurement of mean pulmonary arterial pressure

A computer-implemented method for diagnosing pulmonary hypertension from phase-contrast magnetic resonance (MR) images, the method performed by the computer comprising the steps of:

• providing a time series of one or more magnetic resonance (MR) flow images of a patient's mediastinum during one or more cardiac cycles, wherein each said flow image for a given time point comprises a plurality of 3-dimensional flow vectors associated with a 3-dimensional grid of points;
• segmenting the pulmonary artery within each image of the times series of images, and identifying the anterior wall and pulmonary valve within the segmented pulmonary artery;
• analyzing blood flow during a diastolic phase of said one or more cardiac cycles to determine a relative duration of blood flow, tstreamlines, during said diastolic phase;
• analyzing blood flow during a latter portion of a systolic phase and a subsequent diastolic phase of said one or more cardiac cycles to detect the presence and duration tvortex of a vortex
• wherein analyzing blood flow to detect a vortex comprises:
• selecting an image from said time series of images that is associated with a systolic phase of a cardiac cycle;
• selecting a candidate vortex center point in said selected image;
• forming a first vector from said candidate vortex center point to a second point, said second point having a radius with respect to said first point;
• forming a second vector from the flow vector associated with said second point;
• calculating a sine of an angle formed by said first and second vector;
• and
• for a set of second points forming a circle of said radius, repeating said steps of forming a second vector from a flow vector associated with said second point, and calculating a sine of an angle formed by said first and second vector, wherein said sines are summed, wherein said sum of sines is indicative of the presence of a vortex;
• and
• diagnosing the presence of pulmonary hypertension by analyzing the location index in at least one cardiac phase in said time series of images.

A non-transitory program storage device readable by a computer, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform the method steps for diagnosing pulmonary hypertension from phase-contrast magnetic resonance (MR) images, the method performed by the computer comprising the steps of:

• providing a time series of one or more magnetic resonance (MR) flow images of a patient's mediastinum during one or more cardiac cycles, wherein each said flow image for a given time point comprises a plurality of 3-dimensional flow vectors associated with a 3-dimensional grid of points;
• segmenting the pulmonary artery within each image of the times series of images, and identifying the anterior wall and pulmonary valve within the segmented pulmonary artery;
• analyzing blood flow during a diastolic phase of said one or more cardiac cycles to determine a relative duration of blood flow, tstreamlines, during said diastolic phase,
• wherein analyzing blood flow to determine tstreamlines comprises:
• selecting an image from said time series of images that is associated with a beginning of a diastolic phase;
• calculating in said selected image a spatial average of the flow magnitude in a spatial region in a cross section of the pulmonary artery;
• calculating said spatial average of said flow magnitude in each subsequent image associated with the diastolic phase until an end image is reached wherein said spatial average falls below a predetermined threshold;
• and
• determining tstreamlines from differences in a time associated with said image associated with the beginning of a diastolic phase and a time associated with said end image;
• analyzing blood flow during a latter portion of a systolic phase and a subsequent diastolic phase of said one or more cardiac cycles to detect the presence and duration tvortex of a vortex;
• and
• diagnosing the presence of pulmonary hypertension from tstreamlines and tvortex.