A Method for Determining Left Ventricular Mass in Man

A method for determining left ventricular mass by the use of biplane angiocardiography is described. This method was tested on 23 postmortem human hearts with left ventricular weights of 121 to 453 Gm. The left ventricular chambers of these hearts were distended with known volumes of contrast material and biplane x-rays were recorded over an 80- to 300-ml. range of volumes. Values for left ventricular mass were calculated from the biplane x-ray films and were demonstrated to agree closely with directly measured left ventricular weights. The standard error of estimate was 23 Gm. In six patients, left ventricular weights were calculated from angiocardiograms performed during life and compared with postmortem left ventricular weights. There was close agreement between the calculated and measured values for ventricular weight in all but one subject. This subject had marked right ventricular hypertrophy which resulted in an erroneously large calculated value of left ventricular mass.