New technique for showing the relation of tomographic myocardial perfusion images obtained with thallium-201 to the coronary arteries.

A new technique has been developed for presenting myocardial tomograms that allows the observer to perceive the shape of the thallium-201 distribution directly. The surface of the myocardium was found by applying an interactive thresholding technique to a set of conventional transverse slices. Computer graphics techniques were used to display a shaded image of that surface on a television screen, showing the three dimensional shape of the myocardial surface from any chosen aspect. A set of normal preserved coronary arteries was digitised, and using scaling and transformation techniques these arteries were mapped on to the myocardial tomograms and a shaded surface image produced with superimposed coronary arteries. This provided a familiar anatomical framework for locating perfusion defects. Its value in identifying various diseased vessels was confirmed by a comparison of the tomographic findings with the angiographic findings in five individual cases.