[Quantitation of left-sided valvular regurgitation by gated cardiac blood pool scan: evaluation of a new approach using the Fourier amplitude ratio].
Utilizing the Fourier amplitude ratio (FA ratio), we evaluated a new approach for quantitating valvular regurgitation by the gated cardiac blood pool scan. The subjects consisted of 36 patients with documented left ventricular regurgitation of grade I-IV (group 1), 24 patients with myocardial infarction including severe cardiac dysfunction (group 2), and 15 normal persons (group 3). From each pixel of the gated cardiac blood pool scan, a time-activity curve was obtained and the first-harmonic Fourier analysis was performed. Two functional images; namely, the phase and amplitude images, were generated. To generate the FA ratio, the region of interest was drawn around each ventricle in the amplitude image. The FA ratio was calculated using the following formula; FA ratio = left ventricular amplitude value/right ventricular amplitude value. The FA ratio was 2.66 +/- 1.75 (mean +/- S.D.) in group 1; 1.29 +/- 0.27 in group 2; and 1.11 +/- 0.19 in group 3. The FA ratio for group 1 was significantly higher than those of groups 2 and 3 (p less than 0.001). There was no significant difference between the FA ratios of groups 2 and 3. In patients with regurgitation, the FA ratio was 1.50 +/- 0.37 in patients with grade I, 1.97 +/- 0.34 in grade II, 2.73 +/- 0.95 in grade III; and 6.65 +/- 2.14 in grade IV. There was a good agreement between the FA ratios and quantitative angiographic estimates of regurgitation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)