OBJECTIVE. The aim of this study was to compare ECG-gated 64-MDCT with MRI for the assessment of global right ventricular (RV) function from coronary CT angiography data.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS. Thirty-eight patients (25 men, 13 women; mean age � SD, 55.0 � 8.8 years) with suspected coronary artery disease underwent contrast-enhanced 64-MDCT (64 x 0.6 mm, 120 kV, 770 mAseff) and 1.5-T MRI (balanced fast-field echo; TR/TE, 3.3/1.6; flip angle, 60�; 50 phases). Double oblique short-axis MDCT and MR images were used for further analysis. End-diastolic volume (EDV), end-systolic volume (ESV), stroke volume (SV), and ejection fraction (EF) were computed from manually drawn endocardial contours of the right ventricle. For statistical analysis, repeated-measures analysis of variance and Pearsons correlation coefficients were calculated. Bland-Altman plots were computed.
RESULTS. In general, RV volumes calculated from 64-MDCT agreed well with those calculated from MRI. The mean EF (� SD) calculated from MDCT and MRI was 51.0% � 7.8% and 51.4% � 7.3%, respectively. An excellent correlation was observed for EDV (r = 0.99), ESV (r = 0.98), SV (r = 0.98), and EF (r = 0.97). Bland-Altman plots showed no systematic variation between MDCT and MRI data. No statistically significant differences (p
CONCLUSION. Although contrast injection is optimized for visualization of the coronary arteries, retrospectively ECG-gated 64-MDCT permits reliable assessment of global RV function.