Reproducibility of echocardiographic left ventricular function assessment by an automated technique

Reliable automatic border detection algorithms are the critical point for an effective routine application of ultrasound left ventricular function (L VF) assessment. Aim of this study was to assess the reproducibility of the LVF parameters obtained using an automated commercially available system (HP SONOS 5500B). The residual error of the regression analysis of two repeated measures of each parameter was computed and compared with the mean differences observed between patients with and without myocardial infarction or clinical evidence of heart failure. The reproducibility ranges from good to inadequate depending on the considered parameter and on the affecting disease form. In particular, indexes of systolic performance have a better reproducibility than diastolic one.