Study on three dimensional reconstruction of transesophageal echocardiographic images.

Abstract

Using biplane transesophageal echocardiography and the concept of three dimensional transthoracic echocardiography, we performed three dimensional reconstruction of transesophageal images of various clinicopathologic cases, including atrial septal defect, mitral stenosis, mitral valve prolapse and pulmonary stenosis. The hardware equipment and image processing flow chart of three dimensional reconstruction of transesophageal echocardiographic images are described. Our present study indicates that three dimensional reconstruction of transesophageal echocardiographic images could display multi-regional three dimensional structures of heart and great vessels, including superior vena cava, ascending aorta, right ventricular outflow tract, pulmonary artery and left heart, with clear, visual and stereoscopic imaging. The regional structures could be displayed at different levels of stereo-anatomic-sections and in different orientations of rotating stereo-images, which could provide accurate three dimensional anatomical information for cardiac stereo-morphological study and definition of spatial location and size of cardiac abnormalities.