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.

doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2006.09.016, hdl.handle.net/1765/36302
Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography
Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Voormolen, M., Krenning, B., van Geuns, R. J., Borsboom, J., Lancée, C., ten Cate, F., … de Jong, N. (2007). 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. Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, 20(4), 373–380. doi:10.1016/j.echo.2006.09.016