Manual Right Ventricle Segmentation on Short-Axis SSFP Views: Quantification of the Regional Inter-Observer Variability.

Laurent Bonnemains^1,2, Damien Mandry^2,3, Pierre-Yves Marie^3,4, Pierre-Andr Vuissoz^2,5

Short-axis cine-MRI sequences have become the gold standard for Right Ventricle (RV) function assessment. This process requires a manual segmentation of RV endocardium with known low reproducibility. In a mixed sample of 90 normal, dilated or hypertrophic RV, we analysed the regional variations of manual segmentation between two experienced observers with different metrics and found that the infundibular and tricuspid regions were each responsible for an average of 35 to 40% of the variability in volumes assessment. The variation in the choice of end-diastolic and end-systolic phases was frequent but caused non-significant volumetric variations.