Assessment of left ventricular systolic synchronicity by real-time three-dimensional echocardiography in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy

• Published in: Chinese medical journal 2006-06, Vol.119 (11), p.919-924
• Main Authors: Zeng, Xin, Shu, Xian-hong, Pan, Cui-zhen, Chen, Rui-zhen, Cheng, Kuan, Liu, Shi-zhen, Chen, Hao-zhu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Cardiomyopathy, Dilated - diagnostic imaging; Cardiomyopathy, Dilated - physiopathology; Echocardiography, Three-Dimensional; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Stroke Volume; Systole; Ventricular Function, Left; 心肌疾病; 心脏收缩; 病理机制; 超声波心动描记术
• ISSN: 0366-6999; 2542-5641
• DOI: 10.1097/00029330-200606010-00007

Background Recent advances in real-time three-dimensional echocardiography （RT3DE） offer the potential to assess the left ventricular （LV） dyssynchrony simultaneously by analyzing the 17 segments time-volume curves. The purpose of this study was to test the feasibility and accuracy of RT3DE for quantitative evaluation of left ventricular systolic synchronicity. Methods Twenty-four patients with dilated cardiomyopathy （DCM） and twenty-ftve healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. Full volume RT3DE was performed by using Philips IE33 with X3-1 probe. The global and 17-segmental time-volume curves were obtained by the on-line Qlab software （version 4.2）. The time to minimal systolic volume in each segment （Tmsv） was taken to derive the following indexes of systolic asynchrony： Tmsv 16-SD, Tmsv 16-Dif, Tmsv 12-SD, Tmsv 12-Dif, Tmsv 6-SD and Tmsv 6-Dif, which meant the standard deviation or the maximal difference of Tmsv among the 16, 12 and 6 segments of the left ventricle respectively. The software also provided with each of the above parameters as a percentage of the cardiac cycle. Results Tmsv 16-SD, Tmsv 12-SD and Tmsv 6-SD were all significantly larger in the DCM group than those of the control group [Tmsv 16-SD： （52.9±40.6） ms vs （8.8±6.2） ms; Tmsv 12-SD： （29.5＋30.8） ms vs （6.9±4.0） ms; Tmsv 6-SD： （28.9±34.6） ms vs （7.0±4.7）ms, all P≤0.001]. Tmsv 16-Dif, Tmsv 12-Dif and Tmsv 6-Dif were also significantly larger in the DCM group. There were close negative relations between the LVEF determined by RT3DE and each of the indexes of systolic asynchrony, among which the indexes of Tmsv-16-SD% and Tmsv-16-Dif% correlated most closely （r=-0.703 and r=-0.701, respectively）. The DCM patients had significantly larger EDV and ESV, with significantly reduced LVEF compared with the healthy subjects. Conclusion RT3DE provides a simple, useful and unique approach to assess the systolic synchronicity of all the left ventricular segments simultaneously.