Comparative Study of Cardiac Anatomic Measurements Obtained by Echocardiography and Dual-Source Computed Tomography

Abstract

This study was aimed to verify the accuracy of echocardiography by dual-source computed tomography (DSCT). Seven normal beagles underwent DSCT and echocardiography. Echocardiographic measurements were obtained according to the American Society of Echocardiography guidelines. The DSCT images were reconstructed onto the same echocardiographic image plane by using a reconstruction program, and then the anatomical measurements were obtained. Nonparametric analysis was used for verifying the significance of each of the measured parameters. The anatomical measurements obtained using echocardiography and DSCT were not significant (P>0.05), and the difference between the measurements obtained using both the methods were within 95% confidence intervals except those for interventricular septal thickness and left ventricular posterior wall thickness in end-diastole. The reasons of these differences were considered as the adjacent structures such as papillary muscles or chordae tendineae that may have influenced the echocardiographic findings, lower far-field image quality of echocardiography, low test-retest reproducibility of echocardiography, high-quality images of DSCT minimizing the motion artifact, and retrospective ECG gating technique of DSCT that was offered an adequate timing decision of the systolic and diastolic phase during cardiac movement. Although there were differences in the measurements of interventricular septal thickness and left ventricular posterior wall thickness in end diastole obtained using echocardiography and DSCT, we could conclude that echocardiographic measurement is considered accurate and reliable as DSCT for cardiac anatomical assessment.