Assessment of regional left ventricular function: accuracy and reproducibility of positioning standard short-axis sections in cardiac MR imaging

The assessment of regional left ventricular (LV) function with cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) cine techniques requires a standardized section positioning. A simple selective short-axis method for selective positioning of three short-axis sections (basal, midcavity, apical) was tested for its accuracy, compared with accepted criteria, in 21 volunteers (mean age, 32 years +/- 11) and in 23 patients with myocardial infarction (mean age, 56 years +/- 12). Reproducibility of section positioning and of regional LV parameters was tested in the volunteers. Among the six accuracy criteria defined for standard sections, the selective short-axis approach had an average accuracy of 90.9% in volunteers and 87.7% in patients, compared with 92.1% and 90.6%, respectively, for a multisection approach covering the whole LV. There was very good reproducibility of the selected intersection gap (r = 0.89, P < .001) and of measured midcavity end-diastolic diameters in vertical (r = 0.83, P < .001) and horizontal (r = 0.85, P < .001) long-axis orientations. The proposed method produces standardized short-axis section positions that meet the recommendations for cardiac imaging. The study was approved by the local ethics committee, and all subjects gave written informed consent.