© 2004 by European Society of Cardiology
Copyright © 2004, The European Society of Cardiology
Biventricular diastolic behaviour in patients with hypertrophic and hereditary hemochromatosis cardiomyopathies
aw Palkaa,*
aSt Andrew's Heart Institute, Brisbane, Australia
bDepartment of Cardiology, Royal Brisbane Hospital, Brisbane, Australia
cDepartment of Echocardiography, Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane, Australia
Received 27 May 2003; received in revised form 24 December 2003; accepted after revision 5 January 2004.
* Corresponding author. St Andrew's Heart Institute, St Andrew's Place; Level 5, Suite 335, 33 North Street, Brisbane, Qld 4000, Australia. Tel.: +61-7-3834-4353; fax: +61-7-3831-6663. drpalka{at}sawmh.com.au
| Abstract |
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Aim: To define biventricular diastolic behaviour in patients with cardiomyopathies with predominant diastolic left ventricular (LV) dysfunction.
Methods and results: Doppler tissue echocardiography and both mitral and tricuspid Doppler inflow profiles were investigated in hypertrophic (n = 17), hereditary hemochromatosis (n = 12) cardiomyopathies and age-matched normals (n = 31). The cardiomyopathy group had both lower early diastolic mitral lateral annular (El), cm/s (13.9±6.5) and medial (Em) (10.0±4.5) velocities compared with normals (19.5±5.5, 15.9±3.4, p<0.01, respectively). In the cardiomyopathy group, late isovolumic relaxation myocardial velocity gradient (IVR-MVG) (s–1) was positive compared with negative in normals (1.3±1.3 vs. –0.7±1.4, p<0.01, respectively). In both the cardiomyopathy group and in normals the onset of the tricuspid E-wave preceded the onset of the mitral E-wave. However, the onset of early diastolic tricuspid annular (Et) motion preceded the onset of El (ms) only in normals, but not in the cardiomyopathies (43±26 vs. –8±44, p<0.01, respectively). In the cardiomyopathy group there was a positive correlation between the onset of Et and abnormally positive late IVR-MVG (r = 0.51, p = 0.002).
Conclusions: Biventricular early diastolic behaviour is abnormal in the selected group of cardiomyopathy patients. The delay in the Et (early diastolic longitudinal right ventricular relaxation) may have a negative effect on LV diastolic function.
Keywords: Cardiomyopathies; Doppler echocardiography; Diastolic dysfunction