friday, September 1, 1978
daily nebraskan
page 7
Professor helps build heart scanner
A UNL engineering professor is adapting the techno
logies which produced the "body scanner" to diagnosis
of ailments of the heart.
The goal is an instrument, combining computers and
radiology, which can provide an "inside" look at a beating
heart.
A local member of the research team working to give
physicians this new edge is Y.C. Pao, UNL professor of
engineering mechanics.
His tool is the computer, an instrument which is
becoming one of the medical profession's best friends.
As part of a research team associated with the Biodyna
mic Research Laboratory of the Mayo Clinic and Mayo
Foundation of Rochester, Minn., he is contributing to
the development of a new X-ray device which may prove
of great value in coronary care.
With it, cross-sectional views of the heart can be re
created and then analyzed for abnormalities.
Computer models
Pao's part is to develop computer models which will
transform the X-ray images into meaningful information,
accurately reflecting the dynamics of the heart in action
and disclosing stresses and strains common to heart
ailments, diseases and irregularities.
Since his association began with the Biodynamics
Laboratory in 1973, Pao has received $180,000 in re
search money from the National Institute of Health,
including $40,000 this year to expand the study into the
area of lung dynamics. He is now in the fourth of the five
year heart study and the first of two years of research on
the lungs.
"From an engineering point of view, the heart is a
structure," Pao says. "Instead of studying a hard mater
ial like concrete or metal, however, I'm looking at soft
tissue."
The problem involves a combination of highly sophis
ticated medical, engineering and computer techniques.
He has studied all three during the course of his research.
Scanners not new
The idea of X-ray body scanners is not new, but their
development has depended on the formulation of
computer programs to analyze and reconstruct the images.
Today, many hospitals throughout the country are
using such scanners for brain and other organ diagnoses.
But the heart poses special problems. "Currently avail
able commercial body scanners are suitable only for
examining the cross-sections of stationary organs such as
the brain or liver," Pao explains, "But not for those of
moving organs such as a beating heart or breathing lung."
The explanation lies in the scanner procedures. During
a normal X-ray scan, a single X-ray source is rotated
around the patient to make projections through the body
from various angles. Unlike a typical X-ray in which the
image is projected on photographic plates, the several
scanner images are fed directly into a computer where
they are combined into a cross-section within a matter of
minutes.
But trying to do the same thing with the heart is much
like trying to take a 360-degree photograph of a runner
1 in mid-stride. It can't be done with one camera alone.
Solving motion problem
To solve this motion problem, the Mayo team is con
structing a "28-X-ray scanner" which will allow 28
individual X-ray images to be projected at once, enough
for the computer to reconstruct a finely detailed cross
section. Use of the scanner in actual clinical tests is ex
pected in mid-1979, Pao says. Before that can happen,
however, this work is essential in developing the models
that will insure the machine's accuracy.
To begin, Pao had to determine how the computered
reconstructed heart cross-sections compared with actual
cross-sections. For this, he compiled data from canine
studies conducted at the Rochester facilities.
Hearts from test animals were removed and kept alive
artifically as they underwent the scanning process. A
standard, single-source scanner was used, but in this case,
the heart not the scanner was rotated.
A computer which maintained the heart rate and
rhythm by means of attached electrodes also triggered the
Continued on p. 10
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