Quantifying Right Ventricular Myocardial Mass

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging determines myocardial mass noninvasively and with high reproducibility and accuracy. Right ventricular (RV) mass is obtained manually using suiteHEART® software (“the software”). Gated short-axis, steady-state free precession (SSFP) images of the heart are acquired, and the RV is segmented into 8-cm slices. The desired cardiac phase(s) is selected (e.g., end diastole), and both the RV endocardium and epicardium on all slices are traced at the selected phase (F1). The software then employs an algorithm—based on Simpson’s rule for computing RV volume (F2)—and determines the mass (g) at the given phase(s). The mass may be indexed to the body surface area, but is not automatically reported as such. The mass of the papillary muscles may be included or excluded in the mass calculation (F1).