Automated Measurements of Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction and Volumes Using the EchoPAC System

Objective: To evaluate the clinical value of automated measurements by AutoEF (GE EchoPAC system, version 113) in left ventricular (LV) volumes and ejection fraction (EF) estimation based on the biplane Simpson’s method (manual method) in different clinical subsets. Methods: A total of 322 subjects participated in this study (the common group). In the common group, 112 patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) were divided into the CHD group, and 34 CHD patients with LV wall motion abnormalities (WMA) comprising the CHD group, renamed the WMA group. LV volumes and EF were assessed using both manual tracing and automated estimation. Time spent on each method was documented. The agreements in echocardiographic measurements by different methods were assessed by intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Bland-Altman analysis. Results: The average analysis time of the automated method was 12 ± 1 s/patient with excellent repeatability. ICC revealed good consistency between manual and automated EF in all groups, especially in the CHD and WMA groups, although Bland-Altman analysis showed non-negligible bias in EF estimation between the two methods. ICC analysis showed a good correlation between automated and manual EF in all the good and poor image quality subgroups. Conclusion: Automated method by AutoEF was a time-saving, excellent reproducible, and resistant to image interference approach, with a strong potential in left ventricular function measurements, especially for patients with CHD and/or WMA