Current trends and latest developments in echocardiographic assessment of right ventricular function: load dependency...

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Echocardiography
• Physiology

Background:

• Right ventricle (RV) failure significantly impacts prognosis in cardiopulmonary diseases.
• Accurate RV function assessment is crucial but challenging due to complex anatomy and pathophysiology.
• Historical focus on left ventricle assessment has delayed RV evaluation techniques.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review novel echocardiographic parameters for RV function assessment.
• To highlight the strengths and limitations of these new methods.
• To emphasize load-independent parameters for improved RV evaluation.

Main Methods:

• Review of current literature on echocardiographic assessment of RV function.
• Focus on novel parameters: RV strain, RV-pulmonary arterial (PA) coupling, and RV myocardial work.
• Analysis of parameter limitations, particularly load-dependency.

Main Results:

• Conventional indices (TAPSE, RV S', RV FAC) have limitations like load and angle dependency.
• Novel methods (strain, RV-PA coupling, myocardial work) offer improved accuracy.
• These novel techniques aim to overcome load dependency by considering RV afterload.

Conclusions:

• Novel echocardiographic methods provide more reliable RV function assessment.
• Load independence is a key advantage of these emerging techniques.
• These advancements are critical for guiding clinical management of RV failure.