Intermediate
Technical
IVT
feature tracking
Post-processing technique that analyzes myocardial deformation from standard cine images without additional sequences.
Full Definition
Feature tracking is a computational method that extracts strain measurements from conventional cine MRI images by tracking tissue features throughout the cardiac cycle. Unlike dedicated strain imaging techniques such as tagging or displacement encoding, feature tracking requires no additional scan time as it works with standard SSFP cine images. The technique has gained popularity due to its retrospective applicability and ease of implementation, though it may have lower accuracy compared to dedicated strain sequences.
Usage
Usage note: Often abbreviated as 'FT' in technical literature.
In Context
- "Feature tracking analysis revealed reduced global longitudinal strain despite preserved ejection fraction." — Post-processing cardiac MRI report
- "The feature tracking software automatically generated strain curves from the cine images." — Imaging workflow description
Also known as
tissue tracking
CMR feature tracking
Don't confuse with
myocardial tagging
DENSE imaging