Accuracy and reproducibility of new M-mode echocardiographic recommendations for measuring left ventricular dimensions.

In order to assess the accuracy and reproducibility of the proposed American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) method for measuring left ventricular dimensions on M-mode echocardiograms, we measured the end-diastolic (Dd) and end-systolic (Ds) dimensions by the ASE method and our current technique in 50 normal subjects and 24 patients without coronary artery disease who had symmetrically contracting ventricles on cineangiography. Dd and Ds were significantly greater by the proposed ASE method than by our current technique (p less than 0.001), but the correlation between the two was good (r = 0.93 and 0.83, respectively). In 10 of the normal subjects, the interobserver variability of both methods was excellent. In the 24 patients, the proposed method consistently overestimated the angiographic left ventricular volumes compared with our current technique and occasionally the discrepancies were quite large. Therefore, the proposed ASE method for measuring left ventricular dimensions is not clearly superior to other currently available techniques.