title: Validity of echocardiographic estimates of left ventricular size and performance in infants and children.
abstract: Echocardiography has been shown to be a reliable method for estimating left ventricular size and function in adults, but little attention has been paid to its application to infants and children. This paper describes a validatory study in 40 children aged between 4 days and 16 years. There was a significant correlation between angiocardiographic and echocardiographic estimates of left ventricular end-diastolic volume (r=0.76), left ventricular end-systolic volume (r=0.68), and ejection fraction (r=0.73). Left ventricular mean circumferential shortening rate (mean Vcf), however, gave the mostsignificant correlation (r=0.91). These findings indicate that while care must be exercised in interpreting indices of left ventricular size and performance derived from echocardiography, these measurements, and in particular mean Vcf, do offer a useful and reliable means of assessing left ventricular function in infants and children.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000790:Angiocardiography; D006328:Cardiac Catheterization; D002302:Cardiac Output; D002306:Cardiac Volume; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004452:Echocardiography; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D016276:Ventricular Function