Heart and vessels
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This study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that noninvasive echocardiographic indexes obtained using early diastolic mitral annular and inflow velocities reflect diastolic function in children. We included in this study 61 consecutive pediatric patients (age 0.4–13 years) who underwent cardiac catheterization for various heart diseases with biventricular circulation. Left ventricular (LV) pressure was measured using a high-fidelity manometer to obtain the time constant of relaxation (τ) and LV chamber stiffness (K). ⋯ The e′, DT, and E/e′ values in our study reflect the diastolic function in our pediatric population. However, the weak correlations between these indexes and invasive measures of diastolic function suggest that these indexes are useful in detecting diastolic dysfunction but not in determining the absolute values of diastolic dysfunction. Therefore, a future study is warranted to develop an efficient algorithm for systematic noninvasive evaluation of LV diastolic function in children.