Simultaneous Doppler tracing of the mitral inflow and annular motion provides a useful means of evaluating left...

In this study, we evaluated the feasibility and clinical usefulness of TS(E-E(') ), the time interval between the onsets of early diastolic mitral inflow velocity (E) and mitral annular velocity (E'), obtained by simultaneously tracing E and E', in terms of evaluating diastolic function.

By the diastolic functional status, 105 patients were allocated to abnormal relaxation, pseudonormal filling (PN), or normal diastolic function groups (n = 30, 43, and 32, respectively). The TS(E-E(') ) was measured in the same cardiac cycle by the pulsed-wave Doppler (PWD) tracing of mitral inflow near the septal annulus with appropriate filter and gain settings.

TS(E-E(') ) was prolonged in the PN group versus the normal group (34.1 +/- 12.2 msec versus 12.1 +/- 8.5 msec, p< or =0.001). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of TS(E-E(') ) for the detection of PN was 0.91 (95% confidence interval [CI]; 0.85 approximately 0.97, p<0.001), and 24.0 msec was determined to be the optimal cut-off value (specificity 83.7%, sensitivity 90.3%).

Simultaneous measurement of TS(E-E(') ) is feasible and clinically applicable for the grading of diastolic dysfunction (DD).