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PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to evaluate a newly developed semiautomated contour detection algorithm for the quantitative analysis of cardiovascular MRI. METHOD: Left ventricular function parameters derived from automatically detected endocardial and epicardial contours were compared with results derived from manually traced contours in short-axis multislice GRE MRI studies of 10 normal volunteers and 10 infarct patients. RESULTS: Compared with manual image analysis, the semiautomated method resulted in the following systematic and random differences (auto-manual; mean +/- SD): end-diastolic volume: -5.5 +/- 9.7 ml; end-systolic volume: -3.6 +/- 6.5 ml; ejection fraction: 1.7 +/- 4.1%; left ventricular mass: 7.3 +/- 20.6 g. Total analysis time for a complete study was reduced from 3-4 h for the manual analysis to < 20 min using semiautomated contour detection. CONCLUSION: Global left ventricular function parameters can be obtained with a high degree of accuracy and precision using the present semiautomated contour detection algorithm.
Geest et al. (Mon,) studied this question.