Assessment of left ventricular volumes with cardiac MRI: comparison between two semiautomated quantitative software packages Valutazione volumetrica del ventricolo sinistro mediante cardio-RM: confronto tra due software quantitativi semi-automatici

Purpose. This study compared two quantitative semiautomated software packages for volumetric analysis of the left ventricle (LV) by magnetic resonance (MR) imaging using two-dimensional (2D) cine balanced steadystate free precession (b-SSFP) sequences. Materials and methods. We included 46 consecutive patients who underwent cardiac MR imaging for various indications. Two-dimensional cine b-SSFP sequences were used to assess the LV. Data sets were evaluated with two dedicated software packages: ViewForum, version 4.2, and Argus, version Va60C. Results were compared with Student’s t test for paired samples, Pearson’s r correlation coefficient and R 2 coefficient of determination; ejection fraction differences were assessed with Bland-Altman analysis. The time required for analysis was also recorded. Results. We observed very high levels of concordance and reproducibility. High correlation was observed for ejection fraction (p>0.05; r=0.9; R 2 =0.82). The time required for