Single-Breath-Hold Evaluation of Cardiac Function with Use of Time-Resolved Parallel Cardiac Magnetic Resonance

Using cardiac magnetic resonance, we tested whether a single-breath-hold approach to cardiac functional evaluation was equivalent to the established multiple-breath-hold method. We examined 39 healthy volunteers (mean age, 31.9 +/- 11.4 yr; 22 men) by using 1.5 T with multiple breath-holds and our proposed single breath-hold. Left ventricular and right ventricular ejection fractions (LVEF and RVEF), LV and RV end-diastolic volumes (LVEDV and RVEDV), and LV myocardial mass (LVMM) were compared by using Bland-Altman plots; LVEF and RVEF were tested for equivalence by inclusion of 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Equivalence of the methods was assumed within the range of -5% to 5%. In the multiple-versus the single-breath-hold method, LVEF was 0.62 +/- 0.05 versus 0.62 +/- 0.04, and RVEF was 0.59 +/- 0.06 versus 0.59 +/- 0.07. The mean difference in both methods was -0.2% (95% CI, -1 to 0.6) for LVEF and 0.3% (95% CI, -0.8 to 1.5) for RVEF. The mean differences between methods fit within the predetermined range of equivalence, including the 95% CI. The mean relative differences between the methods were 3.8% for LVEDV, 4.5% for RVEDV, and 1.6% for LVMM. Results of our single-breath-hold method to evaluate LVEF and RVEF were equivalent to those of the multiple-breath-hold technique. In addition, LVEDV, RVEDV, and LVMM showed low bias between methods.