Assessment Of Left Ventricular Diastolic Function By Echocardiographic And Doppler Tissue Imaging: Comparison With Left Ventricular End-diastolic Pressure In Patients With Hypertension And CAD

Backgroungs: Epidemiologic data indicate that Left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction (DD) and diastolic heart failure (HF), that is symptomatic DD and a distinct form of heart failure, are very common 40-50% of patients with chronic heart failure have normal or relatively normal left ventricular ejections fractions. LVDD and LVHF are due to the abnormality of myocardial diastolic properties, such as abnormal myocardial relaxation, decreased compliance, and increased filling pressure. The uncontrolled hypertension associated to LV concentric remodelling is the main determinant of LVDD but several other cardiac diseases, including myocardial ischemia, and extra-cardiac pathologies involving the heart are other possible causes. Diastolic left ventricular function is commonly characterized by transmitral flow pattern. Recently, Doppler tissue imaging (DTI) of mitral annular velocity was introduced to evaluate diastolic function. Early identification of LVDD in asymptomatic patients by the use of traditional echocardiography and DTI may...