Background: Patients with beta-thalessemia major present with severe anemia and need continous transfusion therapy. An important complication of beta-thalessemia major is iron deposition in cardiac tissue, resulting in fibrosis and dysfunction. Cardiac involvement is the major cause of death in beta-thalessemia major. The purpose of this study was to assess cardiac disease patients with bet...

In order to show that stress-induced changes in ventricular function can be determined by radionuclide techniques, 13 patients with coronary artery disease were paced to angina. Changes in ejection fraction and regional wall motion were measured from contrast angiograms and first-pass nuclear angiograms performed using a multicrystal gamma camera. A count-volume method applied to the nuclear te...

T he quantitation of left ventricle (LV) volumes and ejection fraction is an important aspect of cardiac evaluation in all cardiac disorders. Prognosis in many types of heart disease is closely related to global left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), falling off rapidly as the ejection fraction falls below 40% (fig 1). However, although ejection fraction has the advantage of being a simple ...

AIMS Visual analysis of ejection fraction by echocardiography (echo) is commonly performed, but little data exists regarding consistency among interpreters. We postulate that an active echo group evolves a standard to which interpreters cluster, with variation or 'drift' occurring at satellite sites distant from the main practice centre. Assuming that echo ejection fraction follows a normal dis...