Semi-automated echocardiographic quantification of right ventricular size and function

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Medical Imaging
• Echocardiography

Background:

• Assessing right ventricular (RV) size and function is crucial but challenging with conventional echocardiography.
• Current quantitative methods are time-consuming, often leading to reliance on qualitative assessments in clinical practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a novel semi-automated speckle tracking software for measuring RV size and function.
• To compare the accuracy and efficiency of this automated approach against conventional manual echocardiographic measurements.

Main Methods:

• Transthoracic echocardiograms from 149 patients with diverse RV conditions were analyzed.
• A semi-automated software (Epsilon Imaging) was used, requiring single-frame endocardial boundary tracing.
• Key RV parameters including areas, dimensions, fractional area change, and systolic excursion were measured and compared.

Main Results:

• The semi-automated method demonstrated high feasibility (90%) and significantly reduced analysis time (30 seconds vs. 4 minutes).
• Measurements showed good agreement with manual techniques, with correlation coefficients (r) ranging from 0.70 to 0.95.
• Biases were within 2-22% of mean values, comparable to the inherent variability of manual measurements.

Conclusions:

• The semi-automated speckle tracking technique is a feasible and rapid tool for quantitative RV assessment.
• This approach provides reliable RV size and function parameters comparable to conventional methods, enhancing clinical efficiency.