In-silico heart model phantom to validate cardiac strain imaging

The quantification of cardiac strains as structural indices of cardiac function has a growing prevalence in clinical diagnosis. However, the highly heterogeneous four-dimensional (4D) cardiac motion challenges accurate “regional” strain quantification and leads to sizable differences in the estimate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computers in biology and medicine 2024-10, Vol.181, p.109065, Article 109065
Main Authors: Mukherjee, Tanmay, Usman, Muhammad, Mehdi, Rana Raza, Mendiola, Emilio, Ohayon, Jacques, Lindquist, Diana, Shah, Dipan, Sadayappan, Sakthivel, Pettigrew, Roderic, Avazmohammadi, Reza
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Biomarkers
Computer simulation
Exact solutions
Feasibility studies
Finite element simulations
Four-dimensional regional strain calculations
Heart
Image quality
Image registration
In-silico heart phantom
Kinematic benchmark
Kinematics
Magnetic resonance imaging
Regional development
Strain
Validation
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Summary:The quantification of cardiac strains as structural indices of cardiac function has a growing prevalence in clinical diagnosis. However, the highly heterogeneous four-dimensional (4D) cardiac motion challenges accurate “regional” strain quantification and leads to sizable differences in the estimated strains depending on the imaging modality and post-processing algorithm, limiting the translational potential of strains as incremental biomarkers of cardiac dysfunction. There remains a crucial need for a feasible benchmark that successfully replicates complex 4D cardiac kinematics to determine the reliability of strain calculation algorithms. In this study, we propose an in-silico heart phantom derived from finite element (FE) simulations to validate the quantification of 4D regional strains. First, as a proof-of-concept exercise, we created synthetic magnetic resonance (MR) images for a hollow thick-walled cylinder under pure torsion with an exact solution and demonstrated that “ground-truth” values can be recovered for the twist angle, which is also a key kinematic index in the heart. Next, we used mouse-specific FE simulations of cardiac kinematics to synthesize dynamic MR images by sampling various sectional planes of the left ventricle (LV). Strains were calculated using our recently developed non-rigid image registration (NRIR) framework in both problems. Moreover, we studied the effects of image quality on distorting regional strain calculations by conducting in-silico experiments for various LV configurations. Our studies offer a rigorous and feasible tool to standardize regional strain calculations to improve their clinical impact as incremental biomarkers. •In-silico phantom provides a feasible benchmark to validate 4D cardiac strains.•The phantom is validated against a torsion problem with exact solution.•The phantom can recapitulate physiological cardiac motion and architecture.•Anatomically faithful mouse- and human-specific benchmarks are presented.•The phantom identifies optimal imaging parameters to reach accurate motion estimations.
ISSN:0010-4825
1879-0534
1879-0534
DOI:10.1016/j.compbiomed.2024.109065