Echocardiographic quantification of regional left ventricular wall motion with color kinesis.

Abstract Echocardiographic assessment of regional systolic left ventricular function is usually performed qualitatively and depends on investigator experience. In this study, we investigated a new method for quantifying regional systolic wall motion based on color kinesis. In this study, regional systolic wall motion velocity (Vsys) was determined by dividing end-systolic color width by systolic time. High regional wall motion velocity (Vhigh) was determined by dividing the width of the widest color by its duration of 40 ms. First, in vitro measurements with an acrylic glass model were obtained; these demonstrated a high correlation between echocardiographically determined and real “wall motion velocities” (R = 0.99, p 2 = 0.99). Then, 17 healthy, young persons were examined, and normal values for each left ventricular wall segment (16-segment model) were determined. The mean Vsys and Vhigh of all 272 wall segments were 2.3 ± 0.6 and 7.4 ± 1.8 cm/s, respectively. Finally, in 12 patients with coronary artery disease and prior myocardial infarction, Vsys and Vhigh of each left ventricular wall segment were determined and compared with conventional echocardiographic wall motion analysis using the usual 4-grade score system. Analysis of data showed that quantitative color kinesis measurements demonstrated significantly lower velocity values in pathologic than in normal wall segments (Mann-Whitney U test, p