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Background: The right ventricle (RV) plays a pivotal role in cardiovascular diseases and 3-dimensional echocardiography (3DE) has gained acceptance for the evaluation of RV volumes and function. Recently, a new artificial intelligence (AI)–based automated 3DE software for RV evaluation has been proposed and validated against cardiac magnetic resonance. The aims of this study were three-fold: (i) feasibility of the AI-based 3DE RV quantification, (ii) comparison with the semi-automatic 3DE method and (iii) assessment of 2-dimensional echocardiography (2DE) and strain measurements obtained automatically. Methods: A total of 203 subject (122 normal and 81 patients) underwent a 2DE and both the semi-automatic and automatic 3DE methods for Doppler standard, RV volumes and ejection fraction (RVEF) measurements. Results: The automatic 3DE method was highly feasible, faster than 2DE and semi-automatic 3DE and data obtained were comparable with traditional measurements. Both in normal subjects and patients, the RVEF was similar to the two 3DE methods and 2DE and strain measurements obtained by the automated system correlated very well with the standard 2DE and strain ones. Conclusions: results showed that rapid analysis and excellent reproducibility of AI-based 3DE RV analysis supported the routine adoption of this automated method in the daily clinical workflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an initial investigation of a subtraction-based method to estimate right ventricle ejection fraction (RVEF) from ECG-gated planar equilibrium radionuclide angiography (ERNA) data. Twenty-six consecutive patients referred for scintigraphic evaluation of cardiac function prior to chemotherapy had ECG-gated first-pass (FP) imaging and ERNA imaging performed following the same radiotracer injection. RVEF was computed from FP images (RVEFFP) and separately from ERNA images (RVEFERNA). Standard methods for computing ejection fractions were used to obtain RVEFFP values. RVEFERNA values were obtained using harmonic subtraction of the left ventricular contribution from a biventricular region of interest contoured on the equilibrium images acquired in the shallow right anterior oblique projection. Clinically acquired chest CT data were used to derive information regarding the relative position of the left and right ventricle and about the presence of pulmonary artery enlargement. Computation of RVEFERNA was successful for each of the 26 patients. Computation of RVEFFP failed for four patients. For the 22 patients for which RVEF was computed using both methods, the average RVEFFP was 49% and the average RVEFERNA was 51%, with coefficients of variation of 11 and 7.5%, respectively. Low RVEFERNA values were associated with pulmonary artery dilation. Estimation of RVEFERNA, using a harmonic subtraction-based method of computation is clinically feasible and accurate in the patient population studied. The results support further investigation in patients with frank heart failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

. The objective was to assess the serial change of the cardiac function after blood transfusion in patients with chronic anaemia. According to a previous study, transfusion would adjust the ejection fraction to the advantage of cardiac function in chronic anaemia patients, and thus the serial change of the cardiac function in a certain period should be evaluated after transfusion in patients with chronic anaemia. In a prospective study, ejection fraction (EF) was determined before and ≤ 6 h, 24 h and 72 h after transfusion in 32 patients with chronic anaemia, and the results were compared and analysed. In the left ventricle (LV), the four EFs noted before and ≤ 6 h, 24 h and 72 h after transfusion did not significantly differ between one another. In the right ventricle (RV), the EF 72 h after transfusion significantly increased in comparison with the pretransfusion value (P = 0·043). Transfusion of small amounts of RBC did not significantly change the LVEF up to 72 h in patients with transfusion-dependent chronic anaemia; whether it might change the RVEF 72 h after transfusion deserves further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]