Quantitation of Ventricular Dynamic Geometry by Digital Angiocardiography

Abstract

Conventional angiocardiography requires a large amount of contrast medium, which is especially detrimental in infants and children. In addition, a ventricular injection is often associated with catheter-induced ventricular ectopic rhythm [1–5], precluding optimal analysis of ventricular function, necessary in the pre- and postoperative assessment. To avoid these difficulties and to reduce the amount of contrast medium required, computer-enhancement techniques, based on digitization of the photon density of video images, have been used to provide high-resolution images of right [5] and left [1–4, 6–10] ventriculograms after intravenous and selective ventricular injection of contrast medium. Studies systematically analyzing spatial orientation, size, shape, and function of the right and left ventricle do not exist. We therefore used image enhancement techniques [6] to determine the extent to which digital subtraction angiocardiography after left and right ventricular injection of small amounts of contrast medium with reduced flow can provide information previously available only after large intraventricular contrast administration.