European heart journal cardiovascular Imaging
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Oct 2013
Comparative StudyA three-dimensional echocardiographic study on aortic-mitral coupling in transcatheter aortic valve replacement.
Normal aortic valve (AV) and mitral valve (MV) function in a reciprocal interdependent fashion. We hypothesized that MV function would be affected by severe aortic stenosis (AS) and that it would remain altered after transcatheter AV replacement (TAVR). Using three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography, we studied aortic-mitral coupling in patients with severe AS undergoing TAVR and compared them with controls. ⋯ This is the first study to demonstrate that AS can affect a secondary 'unaffected' valve, the MV, due to the calcification in the aortic-mitral fibrous continuity. TAVR does not result in recovery of MV structure. These changes have implications in the future TAVR valve development and the possible need for MV assessment pre- and post-TAVR.
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Oct 2013
Comparative StudyReal-time 3D echocardiography and tissue Doppler echocardiography in the assessment of right ventricle systolic function in patients with right ventricular myocardial infarction.
Knowledge of right ventricular (RV) function may be crucial in diagnosis and proper management of patients with suspected acute myocardial infarction (MI). Standard echocardiography has several drawbacks, tissue Doppler echocardiography (TDE) and real-time three-dimensional echocardiography (RT3DE) could be used for evaluation of the RV performance. The purpose of this study was to assess RV function in patients with inferior wall acute MI with both TDE and RT3DE. ⋯ Three-dimensional echocardiography is a useful method in the estimation of RVEF, however does not perform better than TDE in diagnosis of RVMI. Threshold of RVEF < 51% may be used for diagnosing of RVMI with adequate sensitivity and specificity.