Left ventricle phantom and experimental setup for MRI and echocardiography – Preliminary results of data acquisitions

Methods for imaging myocardial strains are a subject of intense research. Many methods are being proposed by scientists from numerous laboratories. Those methods are designated for ultrasonic imaging or for magnetic resonance tomography. Attempts to quantitatively compare results obtained from those modalities are scarce. In this work a left ventricle phantom and an experimental setup are described, that enable subsequent acquisition of ultrasonic and MRI data with a well defined phantom geometry and deformation pattern and thus enabling quantitative comparison of strain estimation results. Tagged MRI and ultrasonic RF data appropriate for strain estimation techniques have been registered and presented.