Left ventricular function: MRI assessment.

Biplane left ventricular (LV) angiography has always been considered the standard of reference to measure LV volumes and ejection fraction (EF): however, angiographic measurements depend on the assumption of geometric models derived from two-dimensional information. MRI is the best technique to evaluate cardiac volumes and mass providing direct non geometric analysis of the ventricles with a high contrast resolution. Standard cine MRI is considered a time-consuming technique for acquisition and measurements; breath hold cine MRI and echoplanar imaging (EPI) non gated sequences are useful to reduce the acquisition time from a few minutes to a few seconds. The evaluation of the heart linear parameters (diameters, thickness), areas, volumes and mass is essential in the diagnosis of many heart diseases and in the assessment of the ventricular function. The modalities to evaluate LV measurements and to obtain functional parameters, the acquisition technique and flow analysis were analyzed in this study.