Buried inside a recent press release from Siemens is a report about new software from the company that performs an almost instantaneous volumetric analysis of ventricular function. The software, called syngo Argus 4D Ventricular Function, is designed for Siemens’s Magnetom line of MRI machines. The surprise is not that such functionality is finally available for MRI, but rather that it has not been developed a long time ago. After all, echo machines have been doing it routinely for many years now.
Siemens touts the seamless integration of its software:
Siemens now offers Inline VF (Ventricular Function) – the first fully automatic software module for cardiac function analysis with MRI worldwide. This powerful module is used to analyze cardiac image data immediately after acquisition without user interference, for the first time already during the examination. Up to now, the image data had first to be transferred to a post-processing computer for manual processing. Inline VF provides the physician with very fast access to highly reproducible results of the functional analysis.
Furthermore, Siemens has developed Argus 4D VF for the four-dimensional visualization of the cardiac function. This software enables the visualization and analysis of heart function disorders through the dynamic volume display of the beating heart. With this flexible tool, the cardiac function can be calculated from almost any combination of short-axis and long-axis images. As a new and unique feature, the mitral valve motion is included in the analysis. Thus, compared to conventional approaches, Argus 4D VF allows function analyses with significantly higher accuracy.
To learn more about the technology, check out the following white paper from Siemens: CMR Assessment of Global Ventricular Function and Mass: Greater Efficiency and Diagnostic Accuracy with Argus 4D VF and Inline VF (.pdf)
Product page: syngo Argus 4D Ventricular Function…