With the use of biplane selective ventriculography, the ventricular volume, ejection fraction, and ventricular mass were evaluated in 28 patients with a single ventricle, and those with the left ventricular type (LV type, 12 patients) and right ventricular type (RV type, 16 patients) were compared. There were no significant differences in terms of age, hemoglobin, systemic oxygen saturation, or pulmonary-to-systemic flow ratio in the two groups. No patients with atrioventricular valve regurgitation were included. The ventricular cavity volume was calculated by the area-length method. The ventricular mass volume was determined as the shell volume created by subtracting the ventricular cavity volume from the total ventricular volume calculated by adding the free wall thickness to the chamber dimensions. The ventricular mass volume was converted to mass by multiplying by the gravity of the heart muscle. There was no significant difference between patients with the LV type and RV type of single ventricle with respect to the end-diastolic ventricular volume (188 +/- 53 and 179 +/- 61 ml/m2 in LV and RV types, respectively), end-systolic volume (88 +/- 31 and 84 +/- 27 ml/m2), or ejection fraction (0.54 +/- 0.06 and 0.52 +/- 0.06).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)