ICARO: A computer aided diagnosis tool for the quantification of intracoronary and intravenous echocardiography

Abstract

The detection of coronary stenosis and myocardial viability with myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) has been based on the visual interpretation of the perfusion region by medical experts. To have a purely objective diagnostic result has been developed ICARO. ÍCARO makes a complete analysis of an intracoronary or intravenous echocardiography (MCE-ic or MCE-iv) video sequence quantifying objectively the contrast uptake curves as well as the intensity levels on the myocardial wall among several other parameters. Eighty cases have been analyzed using ÍCARO with more than 93 % of concordance between our software and the visual diagnostic of three cardiologists. ÍCARO gives all the necessary tools to make a complete analysis of echocardiography video sequence with intracoronary and intravenous injection obtaining objective and quantified parameters, and making the diagnostic independent of the cardiologist.