Apn Health, LLC

Shivani Kohut

Donald Brodnick

Jasbir Sra

A method of determining respiratory phase of a living body from a sequence of digitized fluoroscopic images of a living-body region exhibiting respiratory displacement, the method employing programmable computing apparatus and comprising the steps of: (a) in each living-body-region image in the sequence, defining one or more zones with each image having identical image-to-image zone locations, sizes, and shapes; (b) for each image, computing an average pixel intensity for each zone to form a sequence thereof for each zone; (c) for each zone, modifying the average pixel intensities by (i) computing the mean value of the sequence of average pixel intensities for such zone, and (ii) subtracting the mean from each average pixel intensity in the zone; (d) for each zone sequence, computing a figure-of-merit; (e) selecting the zone having the highest figure-of-merit; and (f) using the sequence of pixel intensities of the selected zone to determine respiratory phase.

Determining respiratory phase from fluoroscopic images

A method for generating and displaying a 3D visualization of a cardiac-ablation balloon with a location marker and central catheter portion in a heart, the method using single-plane fluoroscopic images and comprising: placing, inflating and positioning the balloon; capturing a first burst of images from a first angle; capturing a burst of images from a second (different) angle; selecting an image from each burst to minimize cardio-respiratory phase differences therebetween; identifying the location marker in each image; placing first and second orientation markers in two images where the central catheter portion intersects a projected balloon image farthest from the location marker; associating the second-view location and orientation markers in the selected second-view image with the first-view location orientation markers; determining balloon 3D location and orientation of the balloon using the selected images and associated orientation markers; and inserting a balloon model into the 3D visualization for display.

Determining and displaying the 3D location and orientation of a cardiac-ablation balloon

A method of determining respiratory phase of a living body from a sequence of digitized fluoroscopic images of a living-body region exhibiting respiratory displacement. The method employs programmable computing apparatus and includes the steps of: (1) in each living-body-region image in the sequence, defining one or more zones with each image having identical image-to-image zone locations, sizes, and shapes; (2) for each image, computing an average pixel intensity for each zone to form a sequence thereof for each zone; (3) for each zone, modifying the average pixel intensities by (a) computing the mean value of the sequence of average pixel intensities for such zone, (b) subtracting the mean from each average pixel intensity in the zone, and (c) summing the absolute values of the modified average pixel intensities to form a zone-sequence sum A; (4) for each zone, computing absolute-value first differences for each sequential pair of average pixel intensities and summing the differences to form a zone-sequence first-difference sum B; (5) selecting the zone having the highest ratio A/B; and (6) using the sequence of modified average pixel intensities of the selected zone to determine respiratory phase.

A method for generating a 3D map of a cardiac parameter in a region of a living heart, the method using single-plane fluoroscopic images and comprising: (a) placing a plurality of catheters each having one or more radio-opaque sensors into the region such that the locations of the sensors geometrically span the region; (b) capturing a first-view digitized 2D image of the region from a first fluoroscope positioned at a first angle; (c) identifying each of the plurality of sensors in the first-view image; (d) capturing a second-view digitized 2D image of the region from a second fluoroscope positioned at a second angle which is different from the first angle; (e) identifying each of the plurality of sensors in the second-view image; (f) associating each of the plurality of identified sensors in the second-view image with its corresponding identified sensor in the first-view image; (g) sensing and storing values of the cardiac parameter with each of the plurality of sensors; (h) determining the 3D location of each of the plurality of sensors from the first-view and second-view images using back-projection calculations; (i) associating each of the parameter values with its corresponding sensor location; (j) generating the parameter map from the first-view and second-view images; and (k) displaying the parameter map on a display device.

Growing community of inventors

Fayetteville, NC, United States of America

Shivani Kohut