European heart journal cardiovascular Imaging
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Dec 2014
Clinical value of echocardiographic Doppler-derived right ventricular dp/dt in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Right ventricular (RV) dp/dt is the instantaneous rate of RV pressure rise during early systole and is a surrogate marker of RV contractility. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of echocardiographic Doppler obtained RV dp/dt to predict long-term survival in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and chronic thrombo-embolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). ⋯ A reduced baseline RV dp/dt is a clear indicator of poor outcome independent of TAPSE in patients with PAH/CTEPH.
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Dec 2014
Patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot suffer from intra- and inter-ventricular cardiac dyssynchrony: a cardiac magnetic resonance study.
Patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (rTOF) frequently have right bundle branch block. To better understand the contribution of cardiac dyssynchrony to dysfunction, we developed a method to quantify left (LV), right (RV), and inter-ventricular dyssynchrony using standard cine cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR). ⋯ Patients with rTOF have intra- and inter-ventricular dyssynchrony, which can be quantified from standard cine CMR. This new approach can potentially help determine the contribution of dyssynchrony to ventricular dysfunction in future studies.
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Dec 2014
A revised methodology for aortic-valvar complex calcium quantification for transcatheter aortic valve implantation.
We sought to optimize a method for quantification of the calcium in the aortic-valvar complex for the prediction of significant paravalvular leak (PVL) after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). ⋯ Both leaflet and LVOT calcium are significant predictors of PVL and exert an important synergistic influence on this complication, even in appropriately sized valves. With careful attention to thresholds for detection, clinically relevant leaflet calcium volumes can be identified with either non-contrast or contrast CT scans.