Scientists draw 3D atlas of human heart

Researchers have created a high-resolution atlas of the heart with 3D images taken from 138 people which can help to better plan treatment for cardiac patients.
The study by researchers at Pompeu Fabra University Spain demonstrates that an average image of an organ along with its variations can be obtained for the purposes of comparing individual cases and differentiating healthy forms from pathologies.
"This atlas is a statistical description of how the heart and its components - such as the ventricles and the atrium - look," Corne Hoogendoorn, researcher at the CISTIB centre of the Pompeu Fabra University said.
Scientists have managed to create a representation of the average shape of the heart and its variations with images from 138 fully functioning hearts taken using multi-slice computed tomography technique which offers three-dimensional and high resolution X-ray.

"In our analysis the population group included 138 people but it could be applied to much larger populations," Hoogendoorn said in a statement.
"We demonstrated the feasibility of constructing this type of atlas using many subjects, with an acceptable level of manual parameter tuning, while still providing good numeric results," said Hoogendoorn

To create this cardiac map the researchers developed a statistical model capable of managing high quantities of information provided by individual images. It can also collect temporary variations, given that the heart is never motionless.
The level of detail and the possibility to extend the atlas give it "an advantage over the majority of cardiac models present to date."

This is the case according to the conclusions of the study published in the 'IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging' journal.
The researchers believe that the study can be applied to medical image processing, especially when segmenting, or in other words, properly differentiating a structure to be analysed from the rest of the image.
"The statistics of the atlas offer a continuous range of exemplary heart shapes, which allows for the comparison of concrete cases as well as the calculation of probabilities of the latter belonging to the modelled population," said Hoogendoorn.