Distribution of left ventricular trabeculation across age and gender in 140 healthy Caucasian subjects on MR imaging

{Purpose: The purpose of this study was to quantify the distribution of trabeculated (T) and compact (C) left ventricular (LV) myocardium masses in a healthy Caucasian population against age, gender and LV parameters, and to provide normal values for T, C and T/C. Materials and methods: One hundred and forty healthy subjects were prospectively recruited and underwent cardiac MRI at 1.5 T with a stack of short-axis cine sequences covering the entire LV. End-diastolic volume (EDV), C and T masses were quantified using a semi-automatic method. Ejection fraction (EF) and T/C ratio were computed. Results: We included 70 men and 70 women with a mean age of 44 +/- 14 (SD) years (range: 20-69 years). The mean EF was 63.7 +/- 6.3 (SD) % (range: 50.7-82.0%), the mean EDV was 75.9 +/- 16.2 (SD) mL/m(2) (range: 36.4-112.2 mL/m(2)), the mean C mass was 53.9 +/- 11.2 (SD) g/m(2) (range: 26.5-93.4 g/m(2)) and the mean T mass was 4.9 +/- 2.4 (SD) g/m(2) (range: 1.1-11.4 g/m(2)). The T/C ratio was 9.2 +/- 4.5% (range: 2.0-29.4%). Multivariate ANOVA test showed that the compact mass was influenced by EDV (P < 0.0001), EF (P = 0.001) and gender (P < 0.0001), and the trabeculated mass depended on EDV (P < 0.0001), gender (P = 0.002) and age (P < 0.0001), while the T/C ratio was only influenced by age (P = 0.0003). Spearman test showed a correlation between EDV and C (r = 0.60; P < 0.0001), T (r = 0.46; P < 0.0001) and T/C ratio (r = 0.26; P = 0.0023). T and T/C ratio correlated with EF (r = -0.18