[Echocardiography online quantification of left and right ventricular function by automatic boundary detection:...

Automated border detection (ABD) is a new on-line technique that instantaneously calculates cavity areas from automatic tracking of the endocardial-blood interface with a modified ultrasonic integrated backscatter imaging system. After validation of this new method in comparison with off-line echocardiographic, Doppler- and angiographic analyses, we studied dynamic systolic and diastolic function of the left (LV) and right ventricle (RV) in 50 normal volunteers (31 +/- 9 years) in order to establish ranges of normality for the ABD-parameter. The averaged areas of the LV (apical chamber view) were 25.7 +/- 4.9 sq cm in end-diastole and 14.7 +/- 3.3 sq cm in end-systole, resulting in a fractional area change (FAC) of 43.2 +/- 4.8%. The peak filling (PFR) and peak ejection rate (PER) were 69.3 +/- 11.2 and -61.5 +/- 11.1 sq cm/s. Normalization for end-diastolic area (EDA) yielded 2.7 +/- 0.28 and -2.4 +/- 0.42 EDA/s. The areas of the RV (apical chamber view) were 17.1 +/- 3.8 sq cm in end-diastole and 9.0 +/- 2.0 sq cm in end-systole, resulting in a FAC of 47.3 +/- 9.2%. PFR and PER were 58.2 +/- 13.7 and -51.6 +/- 10.1 sq cm/s. Normalization for EDA yielded 3.4 +/- 0.74 and -2.9 +/- 0.62 EDA/s. The interobserver- and day-to-day-variability for all measured values was less than 10%.

ABD permits reproducible on-line quantification of systolic and diastolic ventricular function and offers a non-invasive approach for longitudinal monitoring of cardiac patients.