Left Atrial Appendage Contraction Analysis: A Preliminary Test on Atrial Fibrillation Patients.

In atrial fibrillation (AF), about 80% of the thrombi originates in left atrial appendage (LAA). However, it is still unclear how and to what extent LAA impaired mechanical contraction and the consequent compromised blood wash-out affects thrombogenesis. In this study, we proposed a novel approach to extract the centerline of LAA and defined different contraction parameters to assess the global impact of AF on LAA. Moreover, we also sub-divided the LAA into different regions and then performed regional contraction analysis. Up to now, we have tested this approach on patient-specific dynamic models of LAA, acquired from 5 normal subjects and 5 AF patients. Our algorithm successfully defined the LAA centerline, irrespective of the existence of variable LAA morphologies and with the help of global and regional contraction parameters, the differences in the contractility of LAA in normal and AF patients were demonstrated.