Assessment of left ventricular mass and volumes by three-dimensional echocardiography in patients with or without wall motion abnormalities: comparison against cine magnetic resonance imaging.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate if three-dimensional echocardiography (3-DE) is as accurate and reproducible as cine magnetic resonance imaging (cMR) in estimating left ventricular (LV) parameters in patients with and without wall motion abnormalities (WMA).


METHODS
83 patients (33 with WMA) underwent 3-DE and cMR. 3-DE datasets were analysed using a semi-automatic contour detection algorithm. The accuracy of 3-DE was tested against cMR in the two groups of patients. All measurements were made twice by two different observers.


RESULTS
LV mass by 3-DE was similar to that obtained by cMR (149 (SD 42) g vs 148 (45) g, p = 0.67), with small bias (1 (28) g) and excellent interobserver agreement (-2 (31) g vs 4 (26) g). The two measurements were also highly correlated (r = 0.94), irrespective of WMA. End-diastolic and end-systolic LV volumes and ejection fraction by 3-DE and cMR were highly correlated (r = 0.97, 0.98, 0.94, respectively). Yet, 3-DE underestimated cMR end-diastolic volumes (167 (68) ml vs 187 (70) ml, p<0.001) and end-systolic volumes (88 (56) ml vs 101 (65) ml, p<0.001), but yielded similar ejection fractions (50% (14%) vs 50% (16%), p = 0.23).


CONCLUSIONS
3-DE permits accurate determination of LV mass and volumes irrespective of the presence or absence of WMA. LV parameters obtained by 3-DE are also as reproducible as those obtained by cMR. This suggests that 3-DE can be used to follow up patients with LV hypertrophy and/or remodelling.
Pouleur
A-C
AC
Division of Cardiology, Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, Cliniques Universitaires St Luc, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
le Polain de Waroux
J-B
JB
Pasquet
A
A
Gerber
B L
BL
Gérard
O
O
Allain
P
P
Vanoverschelde
J-L J
JL
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000465:Algorithms; D002648:Child; D003287:Contrast Media; D019560:Echocardiography, Three-Dimensional; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D019028:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013318:Stroke Volume; D018487:Ventricular Dysfunction, Left / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology
D003287:Contrast Media