Digital Computer Image Analysis in Echocardiography

Echocardiography has become an extremely widely-used noninvasive diagnostic technique, helpful in the identification of the entire spectrum of cardiac disorders.' Initially, echocardiograms were evaluated in a qualitative fashion, with specific patterns of cardiac size, shape, and motion becoming associated with particular abnormalities of structure or function. Increasingly, however, a qualitative, pattern recognition approach to echocardiographic diagnosis has given way to quantitative analysis, first of M-mode and, more recently, of twodimensional (2D) and Doppler echocardiograms. Thus, the current state-of-the-art in echocardiography comprises both qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the heart. In general, the quantitative aspects of echocardiographic analysis have been performed without resort to sophisticated, computer-assisted techniques. At this point in its development, however, echocardiography is beginning to be used in several new diagnostic applications which will require computer-based processing for information extraction. Thus, the echocardiographer and echocardiographic technician will be required to interact with digital computer technology in order to perform certain aspects of the examination, manipulate the im-