Left ventricular volume calculation with integrated backscatter from echocardiography

J Am Soc Echocardiogr. 1993 Nov-Dec;6(6):553-63. doi: 10.1016/s0894-7317(14)80172-7.

Abstract

Integrated backscatter analysis (IB) is a new echocardiographic method for automatically differentiating tissue from blood on the basis of differences in the amplitude of reflected ultrasound. Left ventricular volume was estimated with IB by use of a modification of Pappus' theorem and a summated ellipsoid method. IB measurements correlated well with a standard biplane area-length method derived off-line from endocardial borders drawn by hand from the same echocardiographic data (y = 1.09 x - 35, r = 0.95). Integrated backscatter measurement of ventricular volume derived from six imaging planes with both the Pappus' rule and the summated ellipsoid methods correlated well with magnetic resonance imaging volume estimates (r = 0.91 and r = 0.90, respectively), whereas use of one imaging plane correlated less well (r = 0.75). Automated analysis of integrated backscatter differentiates tissue from blood sufficiently to allow accurate volume calculations compared with magnetic resonance imaging and to standard hand-drawn echo techniques. This method provides accurate measurement of left ventricular volumes that should be useful in clinical hemodynamic assessments.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Echocardiography / methods*
  • Heart Diseases / diagnostic imaging*
  • Heart Diseases / pathology*
  • Heart Ventricles / pathology*
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Middle Aged
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted*