Left ventricular mass assessed by three-dimensional echocardiography using rotational acquisition

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Imaging
• Echocardiography
• Cardiac Structure Measurement

Background:

• Two-dimensional (2-D) echocardiography exhibits insufficient reproducibility for individual left ventricular (LV) mass assessments.
• Accurate LV mass quantification is crucial for diagnosing and managing various cardiac conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a novel three-dimensional (3-D) echocardiographic method for LV mass determination.
• To compare the accuracy and reproducibility of the new 3-D method against established 2-D echocardiographic techniques.

Main Methods:

• Porcine left ventricles (n=15) were measured using a multiplane 3-D echocardiography method with probe rotation.
• Measurements were performed using both "parasternal" and apical views for the 3-D technique.
• Comparison included biplane truncated ellipsoid, area-length, and modified cube formula 2-D methods.

Main Results:

• All methods showed minimal systematic deviation (<5.3%) from true mass.
• The "parasternal" 3-D method demonstrated superior accuracy (7.7%) and interobserver reproducibility (4.7%) compared to apical 3-D and 2-D methods.
• Apical 3-D echocardiography showed lower accuracy (13.6%) and reproducibility (8.8%) than the "parasternal" 3-D approach.

Conclusions:

• The "parasternal" 3-D echocardiography method offers enhanced accuracy and reproducibility for in vitro LV mass estimation.
• Apical 3-D echocardiography did not outperform simpler 2-D methods in terms of accuracy and reproducibility.
• While the "parasternal" 3-D method improves reproducibility over 2-D techniques, it requires more time.