Measurement of left and right ventricular volumes with tomographic equilibrium radionuclide angiocardiography and cardiac MRI

Abstract

We previously developed an operator-interactive method for the measurement of left ventricular (LV) and right ventricular (RV) ejection fraction (EF) and end-systolic volume (ESV) and end-diastolic volume (EDV) using single-photon emission tomographic equilibrium radionuclide angiocardiography (SPECT ERNA). We aimed to compare our SPECT ERNA method with cardiac MRI (CMRI) for the determination of ventricular measures. Paired measurements of LV and RV EFs and ESV and EDV were carried out by SPECT ERNA and CMRI in a group of patients who had myocardial infarction due to left anterior descending coronary artery thrombosis. SPECT ERNA and CMRI provided similar estimations of the mean (SD) LV ESV [61 (23) vs. 61 (32) ml; P=0.99] and LV EDV [134 (29) vs. 141 (44) ml; P=0.28]. The mean (SD) LV EF by SPECT ERNA was slightly but significantly smaller than that by CMRI [0.55 (0.10) vs. 0.58 (0.11) ml; P=0.03]. SPECT ERNA, compared with CMRI, produced similar mean (SD) values of RV ESV [62 (17) vs. 67 (17) ml; P=0.10] and RV EDV [153 (28) vs. 149 (29) ml; P=0.51] and somewhat larger mean (SD) RV EF [0.60 (0.06) vs. 0.55 (0.06) ml; P<0.001]. Excellent correlations were found between SPECT ERNA and CMRI for combined LV ESV and EDV (R=0.85, P<0.001) and combined RV ESV and EDV (R=0.85, P<0.001). This study further validates SPECT ERNA as a method to measure LV and RV EF, ESV, and EDV.