Patent ID: 7945080

Claim:
A method for visualizing damage in the myocardium, comprising: making available CT image data of a heart, previously recorded after injection of contrast medium at a time when contrast enhancement occurs in the myocardium as a result of the first rapid circulation of the injected contrast medium; segmenting the CT image data to isolate the myocardium; tangentially smoothing the image data, the tangential smoothing of the image data being performed on sectional images of the isolated myocardium, oriented perpendicular to a short axis of the heart; and displaying at least one view of the isolated myocardium on an image display device, with CT density values being color-coded such that damaged areas enhanced with contrast medium are easily identifiable, the segmenting being done by adaptation of a model of the heart muscle, and an interface, obtained from the adaptation of the model, between the myocardium and adjacent areas being adapted with greater accuracy via a segmentation technique based on examination of individual voxels.