Effect of Transmural Extent of the Simulated Infarction in a Left Ventricular Model on Displacement and Strain Distribution Estimated from Synthetic Ultrasonic Data

The identification of a sub-endocardial infarction is of major interest in cardiology. This study evaluates the sensitivity of selected measures to the thickness of such an infarction. Synthetic ultrasonic data (long-axis view) of left ventricular models with inclusions were generated using Field II and meshes obtained from finite-element simulations, which also provided the reference for the estimates obtained from ultrasonic data. The displacements, the first and second component of the principal strain (ε1 and ε2), and several measures derived from these quantities were estimated. All estimates, except for the poorly estimated ε2, exhibited sensitivity to the presence and transmurality of the inclusion. The most sensitive was the gradient of the averaged transmural profiles of ε1, and ε1 averaged over the area corresponding to the transmural inclusion. The inflection point of the ε1 profile shifted toward the outer wall with increasing thickness of the non-transmural inclusion.