伊藤 浩¹, 石川 秀雄², 友岡 俊夫¹, 阪上 雄三¹, 酒井 範子¹, 湯 久浩¹, 原田 博¹, 藤井 謙司¹, 南野 隆三¹

Hiroshi ITO¹, Hideo ISHIKAWA², Toshio TOMOOKA¹, Yuzo SAKAGAMI¹, Noriko SAKAI¹, Hisahiro YU¹, Hiroshi HARADA¹, Kenshi FUJII¹, Takazo MINAMINO¹

¹桜橋渡辺病院循環器内科, ²国立療養所近畿中央病院循環器内科

¹The Division of Cardiology, Sakurabashi Watanabe Hospital, ²The Division of Medicine, Kinki National Central Hospital for Chest Disease

キーワード : Centerline Method, Wall Thickening, Echocardiography

This study was designed to develop the quantitative method to determine regional wall thickening of left ventricle by using the conterline method. The short axis plane at the papillary muscle level was recorded in 45 normals subjects, 5 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), and 5 patients with old myocardial infarction (OMI) by the electrical sector scanner. The endocardial and epicardial contours of end-diastolic and systolic echo images were traced and entered into the computer using a digitizer. One hundred equidistant chords were established perpendicularly to a centerline drawn midway between the endocardial and epicardial contours. The length of each end-systolic and end-diastolic chord was subtracted and divided by the length of end-diastolic chord for the measurement of wall thickening (%). Values for wall thickening (%) in patients was plotted against the mean±1 SD of normal values for the assessment of regional myocardial contraction abnormalities. In DCMs, the value for wall thickening (%) in each chord was smaller than mean-1 SD of normal values, indicating the generalized reduction of wall thickening. In OMIs, the values for wall thickening (%) were less than mean-1 SD in segments corresponding to the infarct site exhibiting akinesis or severe hypokinesis. Thus, this modified centerline method seems to be quite promising for quantitative assessment the extent and severity of regional contraction abnormalities of left ventricle.