EnLVAM: Enhanced Left Ventricle Linear Measurements Utilizing Anatomical Motion Mode
This work addresses a domain-specific problem for cardiac assessment by providing a semi-automatic tool that reduces errors and simplifies interaction for clinicians, though it is incremental as it builds on existing deep learning methods.
The paper tackles the problem of inaccurate and time-consuming manual landmark placement for left ventricle linear measurements in echocardiography by proposing a novel framework that enforces straight-line constraints, resulting in improved accuracy over standard methods and good generalization across network architectures.
Linear measurements of the left ventricle (LV) in the Parasternal Long Axis (PLAX) view using B-mode echocardiography are crucial for cardiac assessment. These involve placing 4-6 landmarks along a virtual scanline (SL) perpendicular to the LV axis near the mitral valve tips. Manual placement is time-consuming and error-prone, while existing deep learning methods often misalign landmarks, causing inaccurate measurements. We propose a novel framework that enhances LV measurement accuracy by enforcing straight-line constraints. A landmark detector is trained on Anatomical M-Mode (AMM) images, computed in real time from B-mode videos, then transformed back to B-mode space. This approach addresses misalignment and reduces measurement errors. Experiments show improved accuracy over standard B-mode methods, and the framework generalizes well across network architectures. Our semi-automatic design includes a human-in-the-loop step where the user only places the SL, simplifying interaction while preserving alignment flexibility and clinical relevance.