Abstract #4503

Virtual Short Axis: A Novel Method for Computing Left Atrial Volumes from Two and Four Chamber MRI

Nikhil Jha¹,², Chun Schiros³, Nouha Salibi⁴, Himanshu Gupta³, Steven Lloyd³, Louis J. Dell'Italia⁵, Thomas Stewart Denney¹,²

¹AU MRI Research Center, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, United States; ²Electrical and Computer Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, United States; ³Division of Cardiology, University of Alabama Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States; ⁴MR R&D, Siemens Healthcare, Malvern, PA, United States; ⁵Division of Cardiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States

Quantification of left atrial (LA) volumes throughout the cardiac cycle is important to assess atrio-ventricular coupling. The area-length method is based on areas and lengths of the atrium in four chamber and two chamber views, but does not account for differences in LA shape. The serial short-axis method is more accurate, but requires acquisition of additional short-axis slices. We present and validate a new method for computing LA volumes from standard four and two chamber views, which computes virtual short-axis LA contours based on four and two chamber contours and sums the virtual slice volumes to compute a total volume.