Assessment of Diastolic Function in Coronary Artery Disease with Doppler Echocardiography

Importance of Doppler transmitral diastolic flow velocitiy for evaluation of left ventricular diastolic performance has been pointed out in recent studies. In this study transmitral diastolic flow pattern indexes were assessed in 70 patients with coronary artery disease to determine the relationship between Dopplerderived flow velocity parameters and left ventricular diastolic pressure. Differences in transmitral flow pattern parameters in patients with previous myocardial infarction and in the presence of left ventricular aneurysm is demonstrated. High left ventricular enddiastolic pressure is best correlated with E/A ratio (r=0.62). Among the transmitral flow velocity parameters, E/A, RFI, NMFR were most sensitive while DR and 1/3 FF were most specific to show high LVEDP. It is concluded that early determination of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction is possible with great accuracy by this non-invasive method in coronary artery disease.