Utility of Real Time 3D Echocardiography for the Assessment of Left Ventricular Mass in Patients with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: Comparison with Cardiac Magnetic Resonance.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) have irregular ventricular shapes with small and sometimes obliterated cavities at end-systole that affect the quantification of left ventricular mass (LVM) by conventional methods, such as M-mode or two-dimensional echocardiography. The goal of this study was to validate the use of real time three-dimensional echocardiography (RT3DE) to quantify LVM using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) as a reference, in a large population of patients with different types of HCM.

METHODS: Forty-eight consecutive patients with HCM had a complete transthoracic examination and CMR performed within 7 days. LVM was calculated by M-mode and RT3DE and compared to CMR that served as gold standard.

RESULTS: Left ventricular mass calculated by RT3DE was 195 ± 41 g and 187 ± 49 g by CMR. The correlation between the two methods was moderate, with a Lin index of 0.63 and good linear correlation (r = 0.63, P < 0.0001). The correlation was high when RT3DE was of high or adequate image quality. The correlation between LVM by M-mode and CMR was poor.

CONCLUSION: Three-dimensional echocardiography is an accurate method for the quantification of LVM in patients with different subtypes of HCM that is in better agreement with CMR reference values than M-mode measurements.