ONLINE ASSESSMENT OF LEFT-VENTRICULAR VOLUMES AND EJECTION FRACTION BY AUTOMATIC BOUNDARY DETECTION AND ULTRASONIC BACKSCATTER IMAGING

A new automated border detection (ABD) acoustic quantification system could track the endocardial border continuously and compute the ventricular volumes. Using the data of 15 cardiac healthy subjects and 35 unselected cardiac patients who were investigated with precordial two-dimensional echocardiography, we compared the results of ABD on-line estimated left ventricular (LV) volumes and ejection fraction (EF) with off-line videotape record. Using statistical regression analysis, we found a good correlation between both methods in a standard apical four-chamber plane. Furthermore, approximately 70% of the patients could be studied adequately with the ABD. The authors conclude that ABD based on quantitative assessment of tissue acoustic properties permits on-line quantification of LV volume (together with its derivatives) and EF.