They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But high quality, meaningful images are worth considerably more to both researchers and electrophysiologists involved in the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF).

Image processing is a key area of focus for the University of Utah’s Comprehensive Arrhythmia Research & Management Center (CARMA), whose mission is to provide worldwide pioneering leadership in advancing clinical treatments and research for cardiac arrhythmias, especially AF. To learn more about the latest advances and anticipated developments in image processing, we spoke to Joshua Cates, PhD, CARMA’s Image Processing Director and a computer scientist at the University of Utah’s Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute.

How long have you been working with CARMA, and what is your primary role?
Dr. Cates: I started two years ago and have been working on algorithms research and software development for cardiac MRI analysis. A major focus of my work has been directing the development of Corview, our patented research software for staging AF progression from MRI.

How does Corview work?
Dr. Cates: The software incorporates novel algorithms for 3D image processing and volume visualization to produce detailed models of patient heart structures. For AF treatment, it quantifies the extent of the fibrosis in the heart’s left atrium and computes the Utah I-IV classification of AF progression, which in clinical practice is used to plan AF management and ablation strategies. Corview also provides visual and quantitative analysis of post-ablation scar patterning.

Does this software have other applications?
Dr. Cates: Corview is a software platform through which CARMA can rapidly prototype and deploy new cardiac image analysis algorithms and visualizations. We are expanding its functionality for use in a variety of AF research contexts, including the capability to analyze structural changes in the heart over time in longitudinal series of MRI images.

Will other facilities be able to use Corview?
Dr. Cates: We will be offering Corview to medical centers in our multi-center DECAAF clinical trial, which will expand our experience with late gadolinium DE-MRI image acquisition and processing in the management of AF. The 5th Annual Western Atrial Fibrillation Symposium will have a two-day Corview workshop for participants in the DECAAF trial.

What are some of your most pressing challenges?
Dr. Cates: We are researching more robust algorithms to automatically identify and quantify the regions of fibrosis and scarring in our MRI images. To help identify solutions, we are co-organizing a challenge workshop at the IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging in May 2012, which will provide 60 pre- and post-ablation AF patient datasets to researchers for testing and comparing proposed new fibrosis and scar segmentation algorithms.

If you have any questions about Corview or the IEEE challenge workshop, you can contact Dr. Cates at cates@sci.utah.edu.

Nassir F. Marrouche, MD is the Executive Director of the Comprehensive Arrhythmia Research & Management Center, Director of Electrophysiology Laboratories, and Director of the Atrial Fibrillation Program at the University of Utah School of Medicine, Division of Cardiology.