Automatic Evaluation of Myocardial Infarction from Delayed-Enhancement Cardiac MRI

This is the challenge design document for the "Automatic Evaluation of Myocardial Infarction from Delayed-Enhancement Cardiac MRI" Challenge, accepted for MICCAI 2020.

One crucial parameter to evaluate the state of the heart after myocardial infarction (MI) is the viability of the myocardial segment, i.e. if the segment recovers its functionality upon revascularization. MRI performed several minutes after the injection of a contrast agent (delayed enhancement-MRI or DE-MRI) is a method of choice to evaluate the extent of MI, and by extension, to assess viable tissues after an injury (in conjunction with the thickening of the muscle evaluated from cine-MRI) [1]. The two main objectives of this challenge are first to classify normal and pathological cases from the clinical information with or without DE-MRI, and secondly to automatically detect the different relevant areas (the myocardial contours, the infarcted area and the permanent microvascular obstruction area (no-reflow area)) from a series of short-axis DE-MRI covering the left ventricle. The segmentation allows us to make a quantification of the MI, in absolute value (mm3) or percentage of the myocardium.

The database consists of 150 exams (all from different patients) divided into 50 cases with normal MRI after injection of a contrast agent and 100 cases with myocardial infarction (and then with a hyperenhanced area on DE-MRI), whatever their inclusion in the cardiac emergency department. Along with MRI, clinical characteristics are provided to distinguish normal and pathological cases. The training set (100 cases) as a dedicated online website will be available mid-April. To participate to the challenge and get access to the datasets, the participant should create an account through this dedicated online evaluation website. Moreover, the participants will also be requested to submit a paper following the MICCAI format that describe the methodology. The submitted
papers will be accepted after a deep proofreading.

The segmentation contest will take place in July, then before the conference, and the global ranking will be based on geometrical and clinical metrics currently used in medical practices. The classification contest will happen during the conference, and the global ranking will correspond to the classification accuracy.

References

[1] Kim RJ et al. Relationship of MRI delayed contrast enhancement to irreversible injury, infarct age, and
contractile function. Circulation 1999, 100(19):1992 – 2002.