OBJECTIVE We compared two- and three-dimensional echocardiography with cineventriculography for measurement of left ventricular volume in patients. BACKGROUND Three-dimensional echocardiography has been shown to be highly accurate and superior to two-dimensional echocardiography in measuring left ventricular volume in vitro. However, there has been little comparison of the two methods in patients. METHODS Two- and three-dimensional echocardiography were performed in 35 patients (mean age 48 years) 1 to 3 h before left ventricular cineventriculography. Three-dimensional echocardiography used an acoustic spatial locator to register image position. Volume was computed using a polyhedral surface reconstruction algorithm based on multiple nonparallel, unevenly spaced short-axis cross sections. Two-dimensional echocardiography used the apical biplane summation of disks method. Single-plane cineventriculographic volumes were calculated using the summation of disks algorithm. The methods were compared by linear regression and a limits of agreement analysis. For the latter, systematic error was assessed by the mean of the differences (cineventriculography minus echocardiography), and the limits of agreement were defined as +/- 2 SD from the mean difference. RESULTS Three-dimensional echocardiographic volumes demonstrated excellent correlation (end-diastole r = 0.97; end-systole r = 0.98) with cineventriculography. Standard errors of the estimate were approximately half of those of two-dimensional echocardiography (end-diastole +/- 11.0 ml vs. +/- 21.5 ml; end-systole +/- 10.2 ml vs. +/- 17.0 ml). By limits of agreement analysis the end-diastolic mean differences for two- and three-dimensional echocardiography were 21.1 and 12.9 ml, respectively. The limits of agreement (+/- 2 SD) were +/- 54.0 and +/- 24.8 ml, respectively. For end-systole, comparable improvement was obtained by three-dimensional echocardiography. Results for ejection fraction by the two methods were similar. CONCLUSIONS Three-dimensional echocardiography correlates highly with cineventriculography for estimation of ventricular volumes in patients and has approximately half the variability of two-dimensional echocardiography for these measurements. On the basis of this study, three-dimensional echocardiography is the preferred echocardiographic technique for measurement of ventricular volume. Three-dimensional echocardiography is equivalent to two-dimensional echocardiography for measuring ejection fraction.