Background: Left atrial (LA) assessment is an important marker of adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) accurately quantifies LA volume and function based on biplane long-axis imaging. We aimed to validate single-plane-derived LA indices against the biplane method to simplify the post-processing of cine CMR.
Methods: In this study, 100 patients from Leeds Teaching Hospitals were used as the derivation cohort. Bias correction for the single plane method was applied and subsequently validated in 79 subjects.
Results: There were significant differences between the biplane and single plane mean LA maximum and minimum volumes and LA ejection fraction (EF) (all p < 0.01). After correcting for biases in the validation cohort, significant correlations in all LA indices were observed (0.89 to 0.98). The area under the curve (AUC) for the single plane to predict biplane cutoffs of LA maximum volume ≥ 112 mL was 0.97, LA minimum volume ≥ 44 mL was 0.99, LA stroke volume (SV) ≤ 21 mL was 1, and LA EF ≤ 46% was 1, (all p < 0.001).
Conclusions: LA volumetric and functional assessment by the single plane method has a systematic bias compared to the biplane method. After bias correction, single plane LA volume and function are comparable to the biplane method.
Keywords: CMR; atrial function; heart atria; image processing; magnetic resonance imaging.