Abstract: Objective: To investigate the clinical value of real-time three-dimensional echocardiography(RT3DE) in assessment of left ventricular systolic excursion. Methods: Ten patients with dilated cardiomyopathy(DCM) and 55 normal children were studied. Full-volume RT3DE was performed using Philips IE33 with the X7-2 matrix array 3D transducer. Post-processing software Qlab (version 5.1.2) was used for advanced analysis. RT3DE can automatically measured average excursion and average ball excursion of every segments of LV. Results: In control group, excursion and ball excursion have no statistical difference in sex. Excursion and ball excursion had statistical difference in age. The excursion of apical LV segment was smaller than that of middle and basal segments. The ball excursion of basal segments was larger than that of middle and apical segments. There was no statistical difference in excursion and ball excursion between ventricular septum and other segments. The ball excursion was significant smaller in the DCM group than that of the normal group. Conclusion: Ball excursion can be used to assess systolic function of all the segments of left ventricle. RT3DE was proven a feasible and accurate method for analysis left ventricular systolic function in children.

Key words: Echocardiography, Real-time three-dimensional, Left ventricle, Excursion, Ball Excursion