Study on three-dimensional analysis of the left ventricle, (1)

The left ventricular blood pool data were recorded using two sets of scintillation cameras from two directions crossing each other in right angle simultaneously for computer analyses of the results, and thus the three dimensional software of left ventricle images were developed, which were studied for basic experiments and applied clinically. The three dimensional images thus obtained were found to be entirely different from the conventionally obtained two dimensional images. The image is a vertical pile of slices along the left ventricular axis. This system was developed on the theory that the ventricule is a rotating oval-shaped body with the ventricular axis as its center. By its phantom experiments, it was confirmed that this system cannot express exactly the type of constructions consisting of extremely complicated plural surfaces, but can do the type which consists of elliptic arches along the peripheral even when its total shape is of complicated kind. The left ventricle is a somewhat deformed oval-shaped body, and this system was found clinically applicable. Its clinical applications revealed that the three dimensional image shown expressed the size of the ventricle, its state and position in the thoracic cavity in its three dimensional relation to the cavity, and it was possible to detect abnormal motions of myocardial muscles, variation in the axis and the way of contractions. It could detect myocardial infarction lesions, particularly in the cases of akinesis and dyskinesis as well as ventricular aneurysms. Thus this method may possibly be evaluable diagnostically since its findings agreed well with findings by many other methods, showing its high reliability. (author)