Purpose: To compare right ventricular (RV) volume measurements and their reproducibility between axial and short axis orientation acquisition techniques.
Materials and methods: Measurements of RV volumes from data sets acquired in axial and short axis orientations were compared in 20 normal subjects. The observer variabilities were assessed and the left ventricle (LV) and RV stroke volumes (SV) were compared.
Results: There was a significant and systematic difference in the EDV and ESV volumes between the axial and short axis methods. The latter method resulted in larger volumes (mean bias EDV 7.5 +/- 13.2, 4.7% difference; ESV 7.2 +/- 8.6, 10.7% difference). The axial method had lower intra- and interobserver variability than the short axis method. The standard deviation of the difference (SDD) and the limits of agreement were consistently lower for the axial method. The mean differences between LV and RV stroke volumes expressed as mean +/- 1 SD (r(2) =correlation coefficient) were: axial 7.6 +/- 9.1 (r(2) = 0.93); and short axis 7.4 +/- 10.8 (r(2) = 0.90).
Conclusion: There is a significant systematic difference between volumes measured using the two different orientations. The axial orientation resulted in better inter- and intraobserver reproducibility.
Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.