Normal Adult Cross‐Sectional Echocardiographic Values: Linear Dimensions and Chamber Areas

Although cross-sectional echocardiography has been in widespread clinical use for a number of years, there exists no compendium of normal values for the large number of measurements this technique can provide. Initially, data derived from M-mode studies'X2 were simply extrapolated to provide references for the relatively small number of cross-sectional measurements with M-mode analogues. More recently, there have been cross-sectional reports of right atrial and right ventricular measurements obtained in a single (apical fourchamber) echocardiographic view,3 left atrial diameters measured in a variety of views,4 left ventricular diameters quantitated from parasternal long axis and apical twoand fourchamber views,5 and cardiac chamber and aortic diameters obtained from apical and parasternal views.6 These studies have not, however, considered measurements obtainable with other frequently used imaging planes or measurements of great vessels other than the aorta. Furthermore, the important practical issues of interand intra-observer variability, comparability of measurements made from different imaging planes, and the influence of sex, body surface area and age have not been fully addressed. We have previously published a preliminary listing of normal cross-sectional echocardiographic values based on measurements derived from a small number of normal adult volu n t e e r ~ . ~ The purposes of this report were: (1) to present the results of linear dimensions and chamber areas obtained from an expanded normal population reference group; (2) to examine the inter-observer and intra-observer variability inherent in these measurements; (3) in situations where there are no standards for the points at which measurement should be taken, to compare measurements made with several alternative references; (4) to compare measurements of theoretically equivalent cardiac dimensions made in different echocardiographic views; and (5) to explore the influence of sex, body surface areaiweight and age on the parameters measured.