Fig 1.
Echocardiographic views used to assess cardiac function.
a. Parasternal long-axis (PLAX) view of LV (1. Interventricular septum IVS, 2 End-diastolic dimension LVIDD, 3. Posterior wall dimension PWD). b. Mid-ventricular SAX papillary view (1. LV end-diastolic chamber area LVEDA, 2. IVS, 3. PW). c. Mid-right ventricular (MRV) view, modified from Scherrer-Crosby[7], (1. R1 mid-chamber dimension, 2. Sub-epicardial chamber area RVepi, 3. Sub-endocardial chamber area RVendo, 4. IVS). d. Short axis (SAX) right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) view (1. Main pulmonary artery diameter PAΦ, and locus for PWD measurement of ejection velocity time integral VTI 2. RVOT dimension R2, 3. Sub-epicardial RVOT chamber area RVOTepi, 4. Sub-endocardial RVOT chamber area RVOTendo).
Fig 2.
Example of an agarose gel mold of the right ventricle.
The molds were extracted following injection and solidification of agarose within the RV chamber.
Fig 3.
Correlation of RV chamber dimensions with gel mass from necropsy findings.
The gel mass was 0.18 ± 0.10g, the RVOT dimension (R2) was 0.34 ± 0.06cm and the mid-ventricular dimension (R1) was 0.42 ± 0.07cm for SC and RVOT views respectively. Neither RVOT nor MRV dimensions correlated with agarose gel mass (R = 0.098, P = 0.41 and R = 0.018, P = 0.73). The chamber area was 0.29 ± 0.08 cm2 and 0.38 ± 0.09 cm2. Both RVOT and MRV chamber areas correlated with gel mass (R = 0.72, P = 0.02 and R = 0.78, P = 0.03). The RV wall mass was 0.19 ± 0.04g, and the wall area was 0.069 ± 0.017cm2 and 0.084 ± 0.017cm2 for RVOT and MRV views respectively. Neither RVOT nor SC wall area correlated with RV wall mass (R = 0.004, P = 0.84 and R = 0.009, P = 0.77).
Fig 4.
Ejection indices of cardiac output (RV CO and LV CO), left-ventricular fractional area change (LV FAC) and Fractional shortening (LV FS).
Fig 5.
2D-Strain measurement of ventricular contraction.
a. Mid-papillary SAX view of left ventricle with segmental wall analysis. b. Similar measurement of right ventricular free wall contraction in MRV view. A rapid HR necessitated manual gating of aortic valve opening and closure (AVC) for segmental deformation measurement during the cardiac cycle.