A left ventricular segmentation based on a parallel watershed transformation towards an accurate heart function evaluation

International audienceMagnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has emerged as the golden reference for cardiac examination. This modality allows the assessment of human cardiovascular morphology, functioning, and perfusion. Although a couple of challenging issues, such as the cardiac MR image's features and the large variability of images among several patients, still influences the cardiac cavities' segmentation and needs to be carried out. In this paper, we have profoundly reviewed and fully compared semi-automated segmentation methods performed on cardiac Cine-MR short-axis images for the evaluation of the left ventricular functions. However, the number of parameters handled by the synthesized works is limited if not null. For the sake of ensuring the highest coverage of the LV parameters computing, we have introduced a parallel watershed-based approach to segment the left ventricular allowing hence the computation of six parameters (End-Diastolic Volume, End-Systolic Volume, Ejection Fraction, Cardiac output, Stroke Volume and Left Ventricular Mass). An algorithm is associated with main considered measurements. The experimental results that were obtained through studying twenty patients' MRI data base, demonstrate the accuracy of our approach for estimating real values of the maximal set of parameters thanks to a faithful segmentation of the myocardium