The extent of late gadolinium enhancement can be assessed fast and reproducible using semi-quantitative method in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Background In hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) assessment of late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) is increasingly important as LGE has been demonstrated to be an adverse prognosticator. Manual delineation of LGE after visual assessment is labour-intensive. Automatic quantification is limited by its dependence on signal/noise ratio and varying definition of LGE. Our aim is to assess inter-individual agreement of a fast semi-quantitative method based on visual assessment for quantification of LGE in HCM, which is feasible for daily clinical practice.