The determination of ventricular myocardial mass by magnetic resonance tomography

MR-tomography (MRT) was used to investigate 10 isolated hearts from patients who died of various cardiovascular diseases. The purpose was to study the accuracy of MRT for determination of the myocardial mass (MM) of the left and right ventricles. MM was calculated using Simpson's method and the "area-length" formula. The first method demonstrated a high correlation of MRT results with autopsy findings with relation to the left, right ventricles and the interventricular septum (r = 0.98, 0.88, 0.85, respectively). The accuracy of the second method was also very high (r = 0.96 with relation to the left ventricle), however great scattering of MM values with relation to true values was noted. MRT can serve as a highly informative method in the evaluation of the ventricular MM and the time course of its changes.