Tissue Doppler echocardiographic assessment of cardiac function in children with bronchial asthma

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Cardiology
• Respiratory Medicine
• Diagnostic Imaging

Background:

• Bronchial asthma (BA) can affect cardiac function in children.
• Assessing ventricular function in pediatric BA patients is crucial for early intervention.
• Subclinical cardiac changes may occur even in early stages of BA.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the role of tissue Doppler echocardiography (TDE) in assessing ventricular function in pediatric patients with bronchial asthma (BA).
• To determine if TDE can detect early signs of cardiac dysfunction in children with BA.
• To correlate echocardiographic findings with disease severity and pulmonary function.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 51 pediatric patients with BA and 30 healthy controls.
• BA patients were categorized into mild (n=33) and moderate to severe (n=18) groups.
• Conventional and TDE were performed on all subjects; pulmonary function tests (spirometry) were conducted on 44 patients.

Main Results:

• Conventional echocardiography showed no significant differences between mild asthmatics and controls.
• TDE revealed significant differences in tricuspid and mitral annular velocities and relaxation times in moderate to severe BA patients compared to controls and mild BA.
• Pulmonary function tests correlated with specific TDE parameters (E', E'/A', lateral tricuspid annulus IVRT), indicating functional impairment.

Conclusions:

• Pediatric patients with BA exhibit subclinical right ventricular diastolic dysfunction, even in early disease stages.
• The severity of ventricular dysfunction parallels the severity of bronchial asthma.
• TDE is a valuable tool for evaluating ventricular function in pediatric BA patients, offering greater predictive value than conventional echocardiography.