Ejection phase indexes with apexcardiography. Comparison with echocardiographic and angiographic parameters

The reliability of a new noninvasive method for evaluating ejection fraction and the mean velocity of circumferential fiber shortening by apexcardiography and carotid pulse tracing has been evaluated. Three groups of subjects were considered. Group 1: 30 normal subjects (mean age 43 years); Group 2: 34 patients with aortic valve disease (mean age 51 years); Group 3: 76 patients with coronary artery disease (mean age 50 years). The mechano-cardiographic tracing points were acquired by an ultrasonic digitizing system and compared with the same indexes measured from the ventriculogram. In 53 patients M-mode echocardiographic evaluations also were performed. The correlations between the apexcardiographic derived ejection phase indexes and the angiographic measurements were highly significant in all subjects and in each group of patients. The correlations between the ejection phase indexes determined by echocardiography and the same angiographic data were also significant, but the r-values were somewhat lower than those found between the apexcardiographic and angiographic parameters in the same patients. Our results have assessed the reliability of this new method and demonstrated that this noninvasive technique can be applied not only in coronary disease but also in aortic valve disease and in normal subjects. It can be concluded that the apexcardiographic evaluation of cardiac performance appears applicable to patients in whom a means of assessing and sequentially following ventricular function is indicated.