Background: The heart is subject to structural and functional changes with advancing age. However, the\r\nmagnitude of cardiac age-dependent transformation has not been conclusively elucidated.\r\nMethods: This retrospective cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) study included 183 subjects with normal structural\r\nand functional ventricular values. End systolic volume (ESV), end diastolic volume (EDV), and ejection fraction (EF)\r\nwere obtained from the left and the right ventricle in breath-hold cine CMR. Patients were classified into four age\r\ngroups (20ââ?¬â??29, 30ââ?¬â??49, 50ââ?¬â??69, and =70 years) and cardiac measurements were compared using Pearsonââ?¬â?¢s rank\r\ncorrelation over the four different groups.\r\nResults: With advanced age a slight but significant decrease in ESV (r=-0.41 for both ventricles, P<0.001) and EDV\r\n(r=-0.39 for left ventricle, r=-0.35 for right ventricle, P<0.001) were observed associated with a significant increase\r\nin left (r=0.28, P<0.001) and right (r=0.27, P<0.01) ventricular EF reaching a maximal increase in EF of +8.4%\r\n(P<0.001) for the left and +6.1% (P<0.01) for the right ventricle in the oldest compared to the youngest patient\r\ngroup. Left ventricular myocardial mass significantly decreased over the four different age groups (P<0.05).\r\nConclusions: The aging process is associated with significant changes in left and right ventricular EF, ESV and EDV\r\nin subjects with no cardiac functional and structural abnormalities. These findings underline the importance of\r\nusing age adapted values as standard of reference when evaluating CMR studies.
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