Diagnostic reliability of radionuclide ventriculography in detecting left ventricular hypertrophy. Echocardiographic...

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is frequently present in patients referred for radionuclide ventriculography (RVG) for evaluation of left ventricular function. During interpretation of these studies, the nuclear medicine physician may have the subjective impression that increased septal thickening is present because of the abnormally prominent separation of the right and left ventricular blood pools. To examine the diagnostic reliability of this finding, we retrospectively reviewed the RVG studies of 43 consecutive patients and correlated the finding of subjectively increased septal thickness with established echocardiographic (ECHO) criteria and commonly used electrocardiographic (ECG) indices of LVH. Using standard ECHO measurements of septal thickness as a gold standard, RVG interpretation of septal thickening demonstrated a sensitivity of 0.69, specificity of 0.70, and accuracy of 0.70. When compared with standard ECG criteria for LVH, RVG performed quite favorably in the diagnosis of LVH confirmed by ECHO left ventricular mass index. We conclude that scintigraphic evidence of LVH should be reported when RVG studies are interpreted.