CORONARY TRACKING DISPLAY

A method of displaying details of a coronary artery lesion in a cineangiogram, by adjusting each frame of the cineangiogram so that the lesion is continually displayed at a fixed location on a display. The remaining cardiac anatomy appears to move, in background, past a stationary arterial segment, thus making the displayed arterial segment easier to identify and to examine by medical personnel. Cineangiographic image frames are digitized and processed by a processor and the image frames are digitally shifted to place the arterial segment in substantially the same viewing location in each frame. Sequential image frames may be presented to the viewer as a stereoscopic pair, to produce pseudostereopsis. The arterial segment appears to the viewer in foreground, as if it was floating in front of the remaining cardiac anatomy. Image frames may be further processed to aid examination by medical personnel. The processor may make quantitative measurements of the cineangiogram and may display results of those measurements to aid review of the cineangiogram. Frames may be averaged to reduce quantum noise and to blur any structure noise; frames may be compared with prior cineangiograms to increase clarity or contrast. Coordinate adjustments for a cineangiogram may help guide therapeutic procedures, or may help enhance other imaging procedures such as fluoroscopy.