Reproducibility of tissue Doppler parameters of asynchrony in patients with advanced LV dysfunction

To assess the reproducibility of tissue Doppler myocardial velocities in patients with dilated ventricles and markedly reduced systolic function (ejection fraction <35%).

Forty-one patients referred for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) were evaluated using tissue Doppler echocardiography. The inter and intra-individual reproducibility of peak systolic myocardial velocities and the intra-ventricular delay in three apical projections was assessed by repeated evaluation of each registered data set. Variability (measured by the coefficient of variation) ranged between 18 and 56% for the peak systolic velocities and between 32 and 117% for the time intervals.

The reproducibility of the tissue Doppler echocardiography parameters (peak systolic myocardial velocity and intra-ventricular delay) was poor in our set of patients with dilated left ventricles and low ejection fraction. The most probable causes of our poor results are discussed including the missing standardization of the TDI measurements.