Quantitative Angiocardiography: I. The Normal Left Ventricle in Man

Quantitative angiocardiography has been utilized to study the left ventricle of seven women and 15 men who had no evidence of heart disease. The left ventricular enddiastolic volume, end-systolic volume, and stroke volume were calculated in 15 individuals and left ventricular mass was determined in all 22 subjects. The mean end-diastolic volume was 70 cc/m.2 The left ventricular wall thickness during diastole averaged 8.9 mm for women and 11.9 mm for men and the mean left ventricular mass was 76 g/m2 for women and 99 g/m2 for men. The ventricular volumes did not correlate well with age, sex, body surface area, or weight, but correlated in a negative manner with heart rate. There was a significant difference between left ventricular wall thickness and mass in normal men and women. Values for normal left ventricular volumes obtained by other investigators using angiocardiographic and indicator-dilution methods are compared with the results of this study. The values obtained for left ventricular mass by the angiocardiographic method used in this study are similar to those obtained by other investigators in postmortem hearts.