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Updated: Mar 2, 2026
Author Spotlight: Advancements in Intracardiac Echocardiography for Atrial Anatomy Assessment
Published on: June 30, 2023
Printed MDCT 3D models for prediction of left atrial appendage (LAA) occluder device size: a feasibility study
Orly Goitein1, Noam Fink, Victor Guetta
1Department of Diagnostic Imaging, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, and the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Aims:
Transoesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) currently serve as imaging modalities for left atrial appendage (LAA) occlusion preprocedural planning. We assessed the feasibility of MDCT-based models to predict the correct size of device for LAA occlusion procedures.
Methods And Results:
Patients planned for LAA occlusion underwent MDCT before implantation, which was used for creating and printing 3D LAA models. Three cardiologists evaluated the 3D models and predicted the correct size of the device by manual manipulation. These predictions were compared with the actual device implanted during the procedure. Twenty-nine patients were included in this study. AMPLATZER and WATCHMAN devices were deployed in 12 and 17 patients, respectively. Two procedures were aborted due to failure of occlusion; all three physicians predicted it. There was good correlation between the 3D models and the inserted device for AMPLATZER devices with a concordance correlation coefficient of 0.778 (p=0.001) and poor agreement for WATCHMAN devices - concordance correlation coefficient of 0.315 (p=0.203). Agreement among the three physicians for AMPLATZER and WATCHMAN devices was excellent, with a calculated average intra-class correlation of 0.915 and 0.816, respectively.
Conclusions:
We found LAA printed 3D models to be accurate for prediction of LAA occluder device size for the AMPLATZER device but not for the WATCHMAN device.
