Feasibility of real time-three dimensional echocardiography for measuring volume and systolic function of right venticle

Objectives To evaluate the feasibility of real time-three dimensional echocardiography(RT-3DE) for measuring right ventricular volume and right ventricular ejection fraction(RVEF).Correlations of right ventricular volume,RVEF,right ventricular area and right ventricular fractional area change(RVFAC) measured by RT-3DE and two dimensional echocardiography were analyzed.Methods Eighty five patients with rheumatic heart disease who had undergone valvular replacement operation were enrolled in this study.Right ventricular volume and related values of right ventricle measured by RT-3DE,two dimensional echocardiography were imported to Tomtec 4D Cardio View software and manually adjusted.After endocardial boundary tracing,right ventricular end-diastolic volume(RVEDV),right ventricular end-systolic volume(RVESV),RVEF were automatically calculated by software,and right ventricular stroke volume(RVSV) was manually calculated.Correlation analysis.in retative values of right ventricle measured with RT-3DE and two dimensional echocardiography were applied.Results RVEDV,RVESV,RVSV measured with RT-3DE were significantly higher than those measrued with two dimensional echocardiography(P0.05);While there was no significant differences in RVEF(P0.05).RVEDV,RVESV,RVSV and RVEF measured with RT-3DE and two dimensional echocardiography were positively correlated(r=0.79,0.82,0.68,0.64;P0.05).RVEDV,RVESV,RVEF measured with RT-3DE were positively correlated(r=0.76,0.79,0.56;P0.05) with right ventricular end-diastolic area,right ventricular end-systolic area and RVFAC measured with two dimensional echocardiography.Conclusions Right ventricular volume and RVEF measured with RT-3DE are feasible,which are positively correlated with those measured with two dimensional echocardiography.RT-3DE is better for evaluating the systolic function of right ventricle.