Determination of left and right ventricular ejection and filling by fast cine MR imaging in the breath-hold technique in healthy subjects.

Purpose: Evaluation and comparison of localized and global left and right v entricular ejection and filling with fast cine MR imaging in the breath-hol d technique. Materials and Methods: 10 healthy volunteers were examined wit h a 1.5 Tesla unit and phased-array-coil using a segmented FLASH-2D sequenc e in breath-hold technique. Peak ejection and peak filling rates [PER, PFR enddiastolic volume (EDV)/s)], time to PER and PFR [TPER, TPFR ms] and time of endsystole [TSYS in % RR-intervall] of all slices (complete-slice-evalu ation) were evaluated and compared to three left ventricular and one right ventricular slices (reduced three-slice-evaluation). Results: There were si gnificant regional left ventricular differences of PER (p = 0.002) and PFR (p = 0.007), but not of TPER and TPFR. Ejection and filling indices of the left ventricular middle slice were closest to the overall evaluation of all sections. In the left-/right-side comparison the right ventricular PFR was higher than the left ventricular (5.1 and 4.2 EDV/s) and the right ventric ular TPFR was earlier than the left (92.2 and 123.5 ms). Conclusions: With fast cine techniques, regional and global left and right ventricular ejecti on and filling indices can be evaluated in addition to the global heart vol ume indices. The three-slice-evaluation represents a comprehensive, clear a nd timesaving method for daily routine.