Angiocardiographic determination of the size of the left ventricular cavity in congenital aortic disease.

Abstract

T HE size of the left ventricular cavity in various forms of heart disease involving the left side of the heart may differ from that of the normal. It may be smaller as in severe muscular subaortic cardiomyopathy, or larger as found in aortic insufficiency. Because postmortem studies are usually performed at the end state of these diseases, efforts have been made to determine with certainty the volume or capacity of this cardiac chamber in the living. Since dense opacification of this cavity can be obtained with routine venous angiocardiography or left ventriculography, it is now possible to determine the size of this cavity and its walls in the early stages of aortic and mitral diseases in the living. The paper of Levine, Rockoff and Braunwald” inspired us to study the left ventricular cavity in congenital aortic stenosis and aortic insufficiency. The purpose of this work was to learn whether or not variations in the anatomic conditions of the left ventricular cavity may be useful in the diagnosis of these diseases. We, therefore, estimated angiographically the area of this cardiac chamber at end-diastole (cm.2) in normals and in a group of patients with congenital aortic diseases. We feel that the measurements we recommend are accurate and simple enough to be made routinely in order to obtain information about the size of the left ventricular cavity in all cases of cardiac disease directly or indirectly involving the left side of the heart.