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Updated: Aug 18, 2026
Morphological and Functional Assessment of the Right Ventricle Using 3D Echocardiography
Published on: October 28, 2020
Quantification of fatty tissue mass by magnetic resonance imaging in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia
Rossella Fattori1, Pierluigi Tricoci, Vincenzo Russo
1Department of Radiology, University Hospital S. Orsola-Malpighi, Bologna, Italy. ross@med.unibo.it
Introduction:
Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD) is a heart muscle disorder in which the pathological substrate is a fatty or fibro-fatty replacement of the right ventricular (RV) myocardium.
Methods And Results:
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies were performed in 10 patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia and in 24 matched controls in order to assess right ventricular epicardial/intramyocardial fatty tissue mass, RV myocardial mass, and RV functional parameters. Functional abnormalities were found in all ARVD cases. Patients with ARVD showed increased fatty tissue compared to controls (8.2 +/- 4 g vs. 2.0 +/- 1.0 g; P = 0.001), whereas no significant differences were found in RV myocardial mass (29.5 +/- 9.2 g vs. 23.2 +/- 6.7 g; P = NS). A correlation coefficient between 0.87 and 0.97 was found for repeated measurements.
Conclusion:
Quantification of fatty tissue with MRI is feasible and constitutes an objective method for differentiating normal from pathological conditions. This approach may lead to a complete diagnostic assessment of ARVD with the potential application for monitoring the evolution of the disease.