The following is a summary of “Limited Concordance of Core Lab Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction With Automated Assessments: A Sub-Study From VALOR-HCM1,” published in the November 2023 issue of Cardiology by Parizher et al.
The accuracy of automated left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) assessment in patients(pts) with irregular heart shapes, like those with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), is poorly understood.
Researchers aimed to compare the agreement of two commercially available software packages for LVEF assessment with blinded core lab assessment in VALOR-HCM pts.
From baseline to week 16, 178 echocardiograms from 112 pts randomly assigned to either mavacamten or placebo were analyzed. Representative clips were manually chosen, and automated LVEFs were computed. LVEF comparisons utilized Pearson’s correlation coefficients and Bland-Altman analysis.
The median left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) with core lab assessment was 68% (Q1 66%, Q3 70%). The correlation with vendor 1 was moderate (r = 0.47, 95% CI 0.35-0.58, P< 0.001) and weak with vendor 2 (r = 0.21, 95% CI 0.07-0.35, P= 0.004). The correlation between vendors 1 and 2 was also weak (r = 0.14, 95% CI 0.00-0.28, P= 0.06). Both vendors 1 and 2 showed an underestimation bias of LVEF by 8% (95% CI 6-9%) compared to core lab LVEF.
The result demonstrated that automated LVEF tools need improvement for accurate LVEF measurement in obstructive HCM pts.
Source: abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/10871/presentation/10354
