Patent ID: 7542544

Claim:
A method for performing a cardiac gated image acquisition with an imaging system, the steps comprising: a) performing a prescan on a subject in which a gating window is determined by: i) producing a bioelectromagnetic signal indicative of the subject's cardiac cycle; ii) acquiring, responsive to the produced bioelectromagnetic signal, ultrasonic echo signals from the subject at a succession of time slices during a cardiac cycle; iii) calculating the similarity of echo signals acquired at selected time slices with the echo signals acquired at other time slices; iv) selecting a succession of time slices having similarity values above a threshold value as a gating window; and b) acquiring image data from the subject by: i) producing a bioelectromagnetic signal indicative of the subject's cardiac cycle; ii) begin acquiring image data with the imaging system, in response to the produced bioelectromagnetic signal, at the time during the cardiac cycle corresponding to the start of the gating window; and iii) stop acquiring image data at the time corresponding to the end of the gating window.