Late enhancement of the left ventricular wall in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy by ultrafast computed tomography: a comparison with regional myocardial thickening.

Eight patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) were examined by ultrafast computed tomography (UFCT) to investigate the relationship between late enhancement (LE) of the left ventricular (LV) wall after injection of contrast medium and the variations between minimum and maximum wall thickness of the LV. Late enhancement was usually found as a patchy, stained area in the myocardium on delayed phase volume mode images of UFCT. Out of 48 LV segments of the patients with HCM, 21 had LE. Normalized percentage regional wall thickening in the segments that had LE was significantly less than that in the segments that did not have LE (63.6 +/- 44.5% and 137.6 +/- 54.6%, respectively; p less than 0.001). This may reflect abnormal myocardial architecture.