This study was done to compare single and biplane left ventriculography in quantitating left ventricular (LV) volumes and ejection fraction. LV volumes and ejection fraction were measured from a 30 degrees right anterior oblique single plane ventriculogram and a 30 degrees right anterior oblique 60 degrees left anterior oblique biplane ventriculogram in 152 men (aged 59 +/- 9 [mean +/- standard deviation] years), of whom 102 had hypokinesia, akinesia, or dyskinesia. There was excellent agreement between the results of single and biplane ventriculography with respect to LV end-diastolic volume (r = 0.96), end-systolic volume (r = 0.98) and ejection fraction (r = 0.97). The end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes measured by biplane ventriculography were consistently slightly larger than those measured by single plane, whereas ejection fractions measured by the 2 techniques were remarkably similar, even for the 46 patients with biplane ejection fractions less than 0.50 and the 102 with hypokinesia, akinesia or dyskinesia. Thus, LV volumes and ejection fractions determined by single plane ventriculography correlate very well with those determined by biplane ventriculography, even in patients with hypokinesia, akinesia, or dyskinesia and depressed LV systolic performance. Biplane ventriculography appears to provide little information that cannot be obtained reliably from single plane.