Assessment of the left ventricular function with the nuclear stethoscope.

The evaluation of the left ventricular function with the "Nuclear Stethoscope" was performed on 27 patients with heart diseases. The reproducibility of the measurements was good. Repetitions of EF, ER and EDV estimations yielded errors of 2.63%, 1.45% and 0.31%, respectively. The comparison with the results of camera ventriculography showed a good agreement of EF, contraction velocity parameters and relaxation velocity parameters, with a cor. coeff. of greater or equal to 0.750. An especially high correlaton was found between the NS EF and NS ER (r = 0.968). It was concluded that the "Nuclear Stethoscope" provides a reliable evaluation of left ventricular function.