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Echocardiographic measures of diastolic function in pediatric heart disease
1Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. PFrommelt@chw.org
Insights
Echocardiography is advancing the assessment of diastolic function in children. New Doppler and tissue imaging techniques improve understanding in healthy children and those with various heart and systemic diseases.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Cardiology
- Cardiovascular Imaging
- Diastology
Background:
- Echocardiography is crucial for assessing pediatric cardiac health.
- Diastolic function evaluation in children has seen recent advancements.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review recent echocardiographic studies on pediatric diastolic function.
- To highlight advancements in characterizing diastolic function in children.
Main Methods:
- Review of published echocardiographic studies from the past year.
- Utilizing Doppler and Doppler tissue imaging techniques.
Main Results:
- Doppler and tissue imaging enhance understanding of normal pediatric diastolic function.
- Echocardiography better characterizes diastolic function in congenital and acquired pediatric heart diseases.
- Studies evaluated diastolic function in children with systemic conditions like obesity and diabetes.
Conclusions:
- Pediatric echocardiography is the leading tool for assessing diastolic function in children.
- Echocardiography serves as a vital noninvasive tool for serial monitoring of diastolic disease.
Purpose Of Review:
The past year has seen a continued evolution in the echocardiographic assessment of diastolic function in children. This paper reviews published studies from the past year that have helped characterize diastolic function using echocardiography in children.
Recent Findings:
Characterization of diastolic function using Doppler and Doppler tissue imaging in the normal infant and child was a primary focus of pediatric echocardiographic investigation. These technologies appear to hold significant promise as tools to improve understanding of diastolic function in the normal child as the heart matures. Diastolic function in children with congenital heart disease has also been better characterized using these tools, specifically in patients with atrial septal defects, tetralogy of Fallot, single ventricle physiology, and following cardiac transplantation. Finally, diastolic function in acquired heart disease or with systemic disease in the child has been evaluated using echocardiography, with recent reports describing findings in children with dilated cardiomyopathy, chronic renal disease, obesity, type I diabetes, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, obstructive sleep apnea, and after anthracycline exposure for childhood cancer.
Summary:
Pediatric echocardiography has clearly become the primary tool for describing and characterizing diastolic function in infants and children both with and without heart disease. It is becoming an important noninvasive diastolic monitoring tool that allows serial assessment of pathologic diastolic disease in both primary myocardial and systemic disease states.
