A Color-Encoded Map to Facilitate the Identification of Abnormal Segments of the Left Ventricle by Novice Examiners

In order to identify regional wall motion abnormality in clinical practice, visually assessment of left ventricular mechanical functionality based on echocardiograms is still preferable and dominant. Although experienced cardiologists may perform a visual diagnosis accurately and effortlessly, novice examiners usually have difficulty. In this study, we present a new color-encoded mapping of the overall myocardial motion of the left ventricle in one cardiac cycle to facilitate the identification of abnormal segments for inexperienced examiners. In our method, two-dimensional speckle tracking with a new approach is employed to estimate myocardial tissue displacements. By assigning a color map to the summation of the displacements' magnitude, our proposed color-encoded map is emerged, which represents a relative measure of the overall mechanical activity of the left ventricle. Considering echocardiography-based examinations of two certified cardiologists as the gold standard, a comparison between the accuracy values of two series of assessments based on echocardiogram sequences as well as our proposed color-encoded map, carried out by 19 novices, illustrates an average agreement of 69.15% and 82.60%, respectively. Therefore, we suggest that this color-encoded map can be used as a complementary tool for cardiologists especially the amateurs to perform diagnosis with more accuracy.