Measurement
Ejection fraction is commonly measured by echocardiography, in which the volumes of the heart's chambers are measured during the cardiac cycle. Ejection fraction can then be obtained by dividing stroke volume by end-diastolic volume as described above.
Accurate volumetric measurement of performance of the right and left ventricles of the heart is inexpensively and routinely echocardiographically interpreted worldwide as a ratio of dimension between the ventricles in systole and diastole. For example, a ventricle in greatest dimension could measure 6 cm while in least dimension 4 cm. Measured and easily reproduced beat to beat for ten or more cycles, this ratio may represent a physiologically normal EF of 60%. Mathematical expression of this Time dependent ratio can then be interpreted as the greater half as cardiac output and the lesser half as cardiac input.
Other methods of measuring ejection fraction include cardiac MRI, fast scan cardiac computed axial tomography (CT) imaging, ventriculography, Gated SPECT, and the MUGA scan. A MUGA scan involves the injection of a radioisotope into the blood and detecting its flow through the left ventricle. The historical gold standard for the measurement of ejection fraction is ventriculography.
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“That’s the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)