Research Article: Doppler Estimation of Left Ventricular Filling Pressures in Patients With Mitral Valve Disease

Abstract


Background— Conventional Doppler measurements have limitations in the prediction of left atrial pressure (LAP) in patients with mitral valve disease (MVD), given the confounding effect of valve area, left ventricular (LV) relaxation, and stiffness. However, the time interval between the onset of early diastolic mitral inflow velocity (E) and annular early diastolic velocity (Ea) by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI), TEEa, which is well related to the time constant of LV relaxation () in canine and clinical studies, is not subject to these variables. We therefore undertook this study to test its usefulness in a patient population.