Cardiac assessment mechanics: 1 Left ventricular mechanomyocardiography, a new approach to the detection of diseased myocardial elements and states

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1980

Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Abstract

The inadequacies of currently employed methods for assessment of cardiac mechanics are discussed, and the need for development of more intrinsic assessment parameters is emphasised. To this end, a new technique is presented to enable determination of regional mechanical constitutive properties of the myocardium during diastole; this technique has been originally named left-ventricular mechanomyocardiography (or l.v.-m.m.c.g.). The data required for implementation of the techniques consist of left-ventricular sequential dynamic geometry and associated recorded chamber pressure. The method entails matching of the inner-boundary deformations of the instantaneous finite-element model of the left ventricle (which is loaded by the recorded instantaneous incremental pressure) with the actual instantaneous endocardial deformations (as derived from either cineangiocardiography or 2-dimensional echocardiography), to determine the regional distribution of the Young's modulus Ene and the incremental stresses Δσne (and hence the total stress σne=∑nΔσne) of the myocardial elements. The mechanical constitutive properties of the myocardial elements can be then characterised by the constitutive relation Ene=a+bσ. The constitutive parameters a and b have typical ranges for normal and pathological (ischaemic and infarcted) myocardial elements and hence can be employed to distinguish diseased elements. The values of a and b are calculated for normal and pathological subjects and their normal and pathological ranges are presented.

Publisher's Statement

© 1980 IFMBE. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02443379

Publication Title

Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing

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