[Usefulness of helical scanning CT in assessment of left ventricular papillary muscle contractility]

Three-dimensional data on the left ventricle at quasi-end-diastole and quasi-end-systole were acquired by helical scanning CT in 12 patients. Short axial images of the left ventricle and long axial images of the papillary muscle were created using multiplanar reconstruction. Left ventricular dimensions and the length of the papillary muscle were measured, and fractional shortening of the papillary muscle was calculated. There was a good correlation between left ventricular dimensions measured by echocardiogram and helical scanning CT (end-diastole: r = 0.94: end-systole: r = 0.86; fractional shortening of left ventricular dimension: r = 0.84). Papillary muscle fractional shortening was 6.3% in the ischemic group and 21.5% in the non-ischemic group (p < 0.005). Helical scanning CT is clinically useful for the assessment of left ventricular papillary muscle function.