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Efficient quantification of the left ventricular volume using 3-dimensional echocardiography: the minimal number of equiangular long-axis images for accurate quantification of the left ventricular volume.

Voormolen MM, Krenning BJ, van Geuns RJ, Borsboom J, Lancée CT, ten Cate FJ, Roelandt JR, van der Steen AF, de Jong N

Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands, Utrecht, The Netherlands. m.voormolen@erasmusmc.nl <m.voormolen@erasmusmc.nl>

For quantification of the left ventricular volume from 3-dimensional echocardiograms a number of cross-sectional images are used. The goal of this study was to determine the minimum number of long-axis images necessary for accurate quantification of the left ventricular volume. A strong correlation was observed between volumes obtained from magnetic resonance imaging and 3-dimensional echocardiography using 16 equiangular images (r = 0.99; y = 0.95x + 3.3 mL; standard error of the estimate = 7.0 mL; N = 30). Comparison of these results with random subsets showed a significant difference for volumes obtained with 4 and 2 equiangular images (P < .005). However, when the subsets were selected to target the eccentric region of the endocardial border this was only the case for subsets of two images (P < .001). This study demonstrates that accurate left ventricular volume quantification can be performed with as little as 8 equiangular long-axis images. By selecting the correctly oriented image set, this number can even be brought down to 4, which will further reduce the analysis time.

Published 2 April 2007 in J Am Soc Echocardiogr, 20(4): 373-80.
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