The methods, present research situation, existing problems, and application foreground of multidimensional reconstruction of ultras onic heart images are discussed in the present paper. According to the procedure of multidimensional reconstruction of ultrasonic heart images, the discussions are presented in respect toimage acquisition, processing, and display. Based on the present situation and existing problems, the future development and applica tion foreground are proposed.

Objective To improve the precision of the traditional segmentation of echocardiogram, by suppressing the influence from inherent speckle noises in medical ultrasonic images. Method An automatic segmentation method based on reconstructed morphology was proposed in this paper. First, the opening and closing operations by reconstruction were imposed to the ultrasonic image. Second, the top-hat operation was used to extract the bright and/or dark features and to find out the boundaries corresponding to these features, whereby implemented the automatic segmentation. Result The segmented echocardiogram had less artificial boundaries resulted from speckle noise, and could accurately be extracted the artery and ventricle. Conclusion The presented method can detect both dark and bright objects accurately, and the boundary has a fine continuity. In addition, the algorithm is also applicable to the extraction of sole bright/dark features, accordingly to reduce the complexity and time needed and to improve the accuracy.

Several kinds of filters for medical ultrasonic images, suchas multidimensional filter, adaptive weighted filter (for example, adaptive weighted median filter), adaptive window selecting filter (for example , homogeneous region growing mean filter and adaptive speckle suppression filter ) and two-step filter, are introduced. The existing problems and the progress trend are also discussed. Some application instances for medical ultrasonic images of the filters discussed and the performance of the filters presented are based on the present authors' practice.

Contour detection is one of the most difficult problems in the multi-dimensional reconstruction of echocardiographic images. A method based on active contour model is presented in the present paper to solve this problem. First, according to the characteristic of the ultrasonic medical images, an adaptive weighted median filter is used to suppress speckle noise and an adaptive threshold value is selected to get binary image. Then, mathematical morphological treatment is utilized to get the initial contour. At last, active contour model is employed to revise the initial contour and get the accurate final contour. Experiments with real and interpolated ultrasonic images are presented. The results show the effectiveness of this method. This method has practical use in the multi-dimensional reconstruction of ultrasonic medical images.

In order to clarify the mechanism of blood coagulation for carbonaceous biomaterials, the plasma rich in platelet was obtaining through the centrifugation of fresh human blood containing anticoagulant. Adhesive tests of platelets to surfaces of DLC, diamond film(DF) and graphite was carried out at 37 degrees C. Then, morphology observation, counting and deformation index calculation of the platelets adhering to surfaces of the three kinds of materials were analyzed by SEM. It has been shown that there is no any platelet on the surface of DLC, but on DF and graphite, a lot of platelets are observed with serious deformation of type III-V. The adhesive amounts of platelet on the surface of graphite are more than those on DF, but deformation index of platelets on the surface of DF is more than that on graphite. Three major conclusions have been obtained through comparative analyses with our previous researches and related literatures: (1) Adhesion, deformation and collection of platelets occurred in succession on material surfaces resulting from protein adsorption are the major mechanism of blood coagulation of carbonaceous materials; (2) Deformation degree of platelets is more important hemocompatibility index than consumption ratio of platelets for carbonaceous materials; (3) The purer the DLC, the better is the hemocompatibility. These conclusions possess important directive function for improving and designing carbonaceous materials used in artificial mechanical heart valves.
Biocompatible Materials ; Blood Platelets ; pathology ; Carbon ; Diamond ; Graphite ; Humans ; In Vitro Techniques ; Materials Testing ; Platelet Adhesiveness ; Surface Properties

Image interpolation techniques were widely applied in medical imaging for image generation and post processing. Firstly, traditional interpolation methods were listed out in the details of shape-based interpolation and dynamic elastic registration interpolation. Secondly, the characteristics, development and problems in interpolation of rotary scanning ultrasonic cardiac images were analyzed. The relation between interpolation and registration was stated. The analysis indicated that excellent methods in rotary scanning interpolation should be registration-based methods. At last, several evaluation methods about images interpolation were discussed.
Algorithms ; Echocardiography, Three-Dimensional ; methods ; Fourier Analysis ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods

This study aims to provide a computer-aided method for the diagnosis of fatty liver by B-scan ultrasonic imaging. Fatty liver is referred to the infiltration of triglycerides and other fats of the liver cells, which affected the texture of liver tissue. In this paper, some features including mean intensity ratio, as well as angular second moment, entropy and inverse differential moment of gray level co-occurrence matrix were extracted from B-scan ultrasonic liver images. Feature vectors which indicated two classes of images were created with the four features. Then we used kappa-means clustering algorithm, self-organized feature mapping (SOFM) artificial neural network and back-propagation (BP) artificial neural network to classify these vectors. The accuracy rate of kappa-means clustering algorithm was 100% for normal liver and 63.6% for fatty liver. The results of SOFM neural network showed that the accuracy rate was 84.8% for normal liver and 90.9% for fatty liver. The accuracy rate of neural network was 100% both for normal liver and fatty liver. This technology could detect the characteristics of B-scan images of normal liver and fatty liver more accurately. It could greatly improve the accuracy of the diagnosis of fatty liver.
Diagnosis, Differential ; Fatty Liver ; diagnostic imaging ; Humans ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Lung ; diagnostic imaging ; Neural Networks (Computer) ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Ultrasonography

In this paper, the adsorption of human serum albumin(HSA), human serum fibrinogen (HFG) and human serum immunoglobin(IgG) on diamond like carbon film(DLC) has been studied in comparison with diamond film (DF) and graphite. The isothermal adsorption of the protein solution with single component and the competitive adsorption of binary protein system have been investigated by radio isotope 125I labelling method. Results showed that (1) the adsorptive amounts of three proteins on three material surfaces are all increased with the increasing concentration of protein solution, then the adsorption tends to reach an equilibrium; (2) the adsorptive amounts of three protein on graphite far exceed that on DLC and DF; (3) the adsorptive amounts of HSA on DLC are more than that on DF, while the adsorptive amounts of HFG and IgG on DF and graphite are apparently more than that on DLC; (4) the differences among the adsorptive amounts of three proteins on DLC are small, but adsorptive amounts of HFG and IgG on DF and graphite are much more than that of HSA; (5) the relative competitive adsorption ability of three proteins on DF and graphite is HFG > IgG > HSA, but on DLC, the sequence is HFG approximately HSA > IgG. Comparing with HSA, HFG has no apparent competitive adsorption superiority to DLC. These results indicate that there is no apparent difference for the adsorption of three human serum proteins on DLC, but the adsorption of HFG and IgG on DF and graphite takes precedence of various degrees. It probably makes a rational explanation for the result of hemocompatibility tests in vitro that DLC is superior to, DF and graphite.
Adsorption ; Biocompatible Materials ; chemistry ; Blood Proteins ; chemistry ; Diamond ; chemistry ; Fibrinogen ; chemistry ; Humans ; Immunoproteins ; chemistry ; In Vitro Techniques ; Materials Testing ; Membranes, Artificial ; Serum Albumin ; chemistry

In the present paper, adhesive test, morphology observation, classified counting and deformation index calculation of the platelets on seven DLC samples made by different processes were carried out after XPS analysis, respectively. Then the effects of carbon phase components on amounts and deformation index of the platelets adhered to the samples were investigated by using the analysis of T-type correlation degree in the grey system theory. It has been shown from results that the amounts and the deformation index of the platelets adhered to the DLC samples made by plasma source ion implantation-ion beam enhanced deposition (PSII-IBED) are obviously less than those of DLC samples made by plasma CVD. The correlation degrees (negative) between the DLC carbon phase and the amounts as well as the deformation index of platelets are much more than those of the other four carbon phase components; besides, larger correlation degrees (positive) only appear between the deformation index of platelets and the C-H carbon phase or C-O carbon phase. It has been indicated that: (1) the effect of DLC carbon phase on platelets adhesion is much greater than that of the other four carbon phase components, the key to improvement in the hemocompatibility of DLC is to increase the DLC carbon phase content; (2) it is necessary to restrain the form or decrease the C-H carbon phase content and C-O carbon phase content so as to control their promotive action on deformation of the platelets adhered to the surface of DLC; (3) using PSII-IBED process to prepare DLC is helpful to improving the hemocompatibility of DLC. These conclusions are essential for designing and improving the deposition process of DLC.
Biocompatible Materials ; Carbon ; chemistry ; Diamond ; chemistry ; Humans ; Male ; Materials Testing ; Models, Biological ; Platelet Adhesiveness

In the present paper, the influence of carbon phase components of three kinds of diamond like carbon (DLC) films, viz. DLC, DLC rich in graphite and DLC rich in diamond films, on adsorption of human serum albumin (HSA), human serum fibrinogen (HFG) and immunoglobin (IgG) was quantitatively analyzed by use of T-type correlation degree in the grey system theory. Through the analysis, the rational explanation for adsorptive amounts variations of the serum proteins with phase components in the experiment is reached and some essential conclusions have been obtained: (1) The effect of graphite phase and C-H phase on HSA adsorption are greater than that of other phase components; with the increase of these two phase coumponents, the adsorptive amounts of HSA decrease; (2) The powerful influence on HFG adsorption stems from DLC phase and C-O phase; with the decrease of DLC phase or the increase of C-O phase, the adsorptive amounts of HFG increase; (3) All of the carbon phase components have only limited influence on IgG adsorption in positive or negative fashion with a little difference in degree; (4) DLC phase has both effects of enhancing adsorption for HSA and weakening adsorption for HFG and IgG, thus its influence on the hemocompatibility of DLC films is much more important than that of other phase components.
Adsorption ; Carbon ; chemistry ; Coated Materials, Biocompatible ; chemistry ; Diamond ; chemistry ; Humans ; Materials Testing ; Membranes, Artificial ; Serum Albumin ; chemistry ; Surface Properties