Assessment of left ventricular diastolic function by Doppler tissue imaging in patients with coronary artery disease

Objective To assess the clinical utility of mitral annulus movement velocity during diastole measured by Doppler tissue imaging (DTI) in evaluation of left ventricular (LV) diastolic function in coronary artery disease (CAD).Methods 199 angina patients were divided into the CAD (n=106) or non-CAD (n=93) groups. The peak velocities of E wave (Ea) and A wave (Aa) of the mitral annulus at the points of interventricular septum and ventricular lateral wall were measured and the Ea/Aa ratio was calculated.Results There were no differences between the CAD and non-CAD groups as regard to the mean values of left ventricular ejection fraction and the echocardiographic indexes commonly used for evaluating LV diastolic function. The mitral flow E/A ratio of the two groups was barely different (P=0.05). However, CAD group had a lower Ea/Aa ratio at both the mitral annular points than non-CAD group (0.68±0.24 vs 0.62±0.17,P0.05; 0.85±0.36 vs 0.76±0.25, P0.05).Conclusions Mitral annular movement velocity parameters during diastole measured by DTI can be used to detect LV diastolic dysfunction in patients with CAD and seems to be more sensitive than the conventional echocardiographic diastolic indexes.