Automatic contours detection in myocardial GSPECT

Myocardial gated SPECT is widely used to provide three-dimensional information on regional perfusion and function as well as left ventricular ejection fraction. In this study, we proposed a generic methodology using an edge detection technique based on the position and the shape of the myocardial wall on the scintigraphic images with no knowledge of counts statistics, axis, tracer distribution or artefacts. After thresholding, we obtained binary images. We applied morphological operations on these images to eliminate artefacts. These artefacts were due to abnormal tracer fixation. This procedure was performed on 110 explorations (8 time bins) and concerned the central scans of the 3 heart axes and the summed image.