Comparative study on left ventricular systolic function by real-time three-dimensional echocardiography and tissue Doppler imaging index in dilated cardiomyopathy patients

Objective To compare the real-time three-dimensional echocardiography(RT-3DE) and tissue Doppler imaging(TDI) in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy(DCM).Methods Thirty-three DCM patients with diagnostic code of the WHO in 1996(20 males and 13 females,aged 45-69 years old,mean age 53 years old,NYHA Ⅱ-Ⅳ) and 28 healthy volunteers(16 males and 12 females,aged 43-64 years old,mean age 51 years old) were enrolled.All the healthy volunteers were confirmed by necessary clinical evaluation.Two-dimensional echocardiography(2DE),RT-3DE and the TDI were employed for the evaluation of the patients.Results The left ventricular ejection fraction(LVEF) indexes(LVEFSimpson and LVEFRT-3DE) and myocardial systolic(Sm) of the DCM patients were decreased,whereas the Tei index was increased,which were significantly different from that in the healthy volunteers(P 0.001).In the control group,the LVEFSimpson was significantly related to the other methods: LVEFRT-3DE(r = 0.895,P 0.01),Sm(r = 0.601,P 0.05) and Tei index(r =-0.513,P 0.05).In the DCM group,LVEFSimpson was also significantly related to LVEFRT-3DE(r = 0.818,P 0.01),but was less significantly related to Sm(r = 0.487,P 0.05) and Tei index(r =-0.493,P 0.05),as compared with that in the control group.Conclusion It is demonstrated that as compared with Sm and Tei index,RT-3DE is a simple,rapid and helpful index for evaluating the left ventricular systolic function in DCM patients and would provide valuable information in clinical practice.