Real time automatic Doppler echocardiographic evaluation of left ventricular function

Automatic contour generation of Doppler spectra was developed to characterize the left ventricular function. The authors characterized the systolic function with two parameters and the diastolic function with five parameters. An IREX Meridian echocardiograph attached to an IBM-AT computer was used to automatically measure the parameters. These automatically determined parameters were compared to the same two (but manually digitized) Doppler spectra in 15 healthy men. During the manual contour digitization all spectra were manually digitized on the screen of the IREX Meridian unit. The cardiac output, cardiac index, and the stroke volume index were determined in real-time. The parameters calculated on the basis of automatically and manually generated contours correlated very well