Quantitative texture analysis in two-dimensional echocardiography: Application to the diagnosis of myocardial amyloidosis

Abstract

Qualitative and subjective analysis of two-dimensional echocardiographic images of the myocardial wall allows one to identify amyloid heart disease; the quantitative analysis of regional image texture might be an accurate method to differentiate normal from amyloid myocardial structures. To test this hypothesis, two-dimensional echocardiograms of nine normal subjects and six patients with histologically documented amyloid heart disease were evaluated. Quantitative texture measurements of the first order (mean gray level, skewness, kurtosis, energy and entropy) overlapped between the two groups. Among the second order statistics variables, entropy was significantly and consistently higher in amyloid versus normal patient data (septum in parasternal long-axis view: 6.3 +/- 0.3 versus 5.9 +/- 0.4; septum in apical four chamber view: 6.2 +/- 0.2 versus 5.8 +/- 0.3). Therefore, amyloid-involved myocardial walls show ultrasound image texture alterations that may be quantified with digital image analysis techniques.

Ultrasonic Myocardial Texture Versus Doppler Analysis in Hypertensive Heart

“…CVI is thus probably a highly sensitive parameter in the identification of abnormal echo density in hypertension and other diseases. [15][16][17][18][19] When the hypertensive subgroups are considered, the CVI was significantly lower in patients with LVM Ͼ175 g/m 2 and in patients with concentric hypertrophy, indicating the patients with the worst prognosis in terms of morbidity or mortality for cardiovascular events. 24,39 The analysis of transmitral flow velocity has provided a means of simple evaluation of global diastolic function.…”

“…This technique was effective in the identification of acutely ischemic and contused myocardium in animal models. 15,16 It was also applied to humans for the identification of amyloid 17 and hypertrophic cardiomyopathies, 18 myocarditis, 19 myocardial ischemia, 20 viable myocardium, 21 and severe LVH in hypertension. 22 The aims of our study were (1) the evaluation of myocardial texture through analysis of the first-order gray level in a group of agematched hypertensive patients compared with normotensive subjects and (2) the evaluation of the power to discriminate between hypertensive and normal hearts of both pulsed Doppler analysis of transmitral flow (as an expression of diastolic left ventricular filling) and videodensitometric parameters (as an expression of intrinsic modifications of myocardial texture).…”

111 In Platelet Scintigraphy for the Noninvasive Detection of Carotid Plaque Thrombosis

“…Several variables (first-order algorithms) were used to quantitatively describe the shape of the histogram, as described previously. 33 The mean gray level describes the average gray value distribution and allows the objective ultrasonographic assessment of characters described visually as "softness", "fibrosity," and "calcification." 34 In addition, an attempt was made to relate the spatial distribution to dependence among gray levels in an ROI.…”

Assessment of Myocardial Postreperfusion Viability by Intravenous Myocardial Contrast Echocardiography

“…Several measures are derivable from this analysis, such as angular second moment and second difference moment. 9,10 Furthermore, there are several approaches to echo texture analysis, such as GL run-length statistics and edge count. 9,10 Further investigation is necessary to determine whether other parameters obtainable from co-occurrence matrix or other statistics may yield better texture differentiation of injured and normal tissue after reperfusion.…”