[Estimation of ventricular volume derived from three transverse diameters and the longitudinal axis, compared with an...

The difficulty of automatic volume estimations of the left ventricle from cine-ventriculography lies in the accurate definition of the ventricular contour during the whole of the cardiac cycle. On the other hand, automatic determination of the long axis of the ventricle, and of three transverse diameters, is feasible. An attempt was therefore made to see whether accurate ventricular volume estimations could be obtained from these measurements. Two different geometrical models were examined: a) A complete rotational ellipsoid b) A half rotational ellipsoid. Examination of ten cine-ventriculograms (totalling 546 frames) has shown that the ventricular volume can be determined with an adequate accuracy by this method. The half ellipsoid model produced better mean results than the full ellipsoid. Its mean deviation from the area-long axis method was only minus 1.2%, that of the complete ellipsoid was minus 3.3%.