Assessment of cardiac volumes and left ventricular mass by cine computed tomography before and after mitral balloon commissurotomy.

We used cine computed tomography (CT) to determine whether decreased mitral valve gradients and pulmonary artery pressures resulted in decreased right ventricular and atrial volumes after percutaneous mitral balloon commissurotomy (MBC). In patients treated for severe mitral stenosis, previous studies have shown that after the mitral valve gradient decreases, the left atrial volume is reduced and left ventricular stroke volume is increased. The effects of commissurotomy on right heart chamber sizes have been difficult to assess with angiography and echocardiography. Moreover, in follow-up studies performed after surgery, changes in cardiac chamber volumes occurring after the mitral valve gradient and pulmonary pressure are reduced are confounded by the effects of thoracotomy. Our group has previously demonstrated that cine CT can accurately measure both left and right cardiac chamber volumes. We studied 11 female patients before, immediately after, and at 1 year after MBC, and 9 female control subjects of comparable age. To assess cardiac chamber volumes, we used cine CT. To assess the effects of MBC, we used cardiac catheterization and Doppler echocardiography.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)