Superiority of 3-dimensional versus 2-dimensional echocardiography for left ventricular volume assessment in small piglet hearts

To evaluate the accuracy of 3-dimensional (3D) echocardiography in the esti mation of left ventricular (LV) volume in vivo, we studied 15 newborn pigle ts ranging in weight from 2.6 to 11.8 kg. Measurements of beating LV volume s by 3D echocardiograms were compared with measurements by conductance cath eter and transthoracic 2-dimensional (2D) echocardiograms with the use of S impson's rule. The results of both 3D and 2D echocardiograms correlated str ongly with the actual volume (r = 0.98 and 0.95 for LV end-diastolic volume , and 0.998 and 0.95 for LV end-systolic volume, respectively). However, th e standard error of estimate (SEE) for 2D echocardiography was larger than for 3D. The SEE values for LV end-diastolic volume for 2D and 3D echocardio grams were 2.30 mt and 1.85 mt, respectively, and 1.52 mt and 0.5 mL for LV end-systolic volume. We conclude that 3D echocardiography not only accurat ely measures LV volume and systolic function in a newborn heart, it is more precise than measurements from 2D echocardiography in the assessment of sm all beating hearts.