[Echocardiographic evaluation of ischemic cardiopathy]

We studied a group of patients with ischemic heart disease divided into two groups: Group I coronary insufficiency. Group II myocardial infaction. We centered the work on the following aspects: analysis of the contractility; evaluation of the movement of the ventricular wall and of the septum; movement of the mitral valve; diagnosis of ventricular dyskinesias, akinesias, and hypokinesias. The patients in group I did not show significant alterations in the values of the ejection fraction and speed of circunferential shortening. The mean values of these parimeters are significantly less than the group of patients with infarcts, and 41% of these patients have EF less than 50% and Vcf less than 0.9. We did not find a correlation between these perimeters and the localization of the infarct. The velocity of the posterior ventricular wall was disminished in both groups of patients. The amplitude of movement of the posterior wall was reduced in the group of patients with infarctions. These parimeters were more altered in the posterior infarcts than in those with anterior localization and they are more an index of the state of the posterior wall than of the ventricular contractility considered overall, contary to mitral descriptions. In 3 cases of acute infarct we found paradoxical movement of the septum, which normalized itself in one patient in 6 months. In 6 other patients with old infarct we observed localized dyskinesias of the septum and of the free wall of the left ventricle. The mitral valve appears altered in a great proportion of coronary patients the most notorious characteristics being: a decrease in the EF pendent; an increase of the F index. These findings are considered in relation with the ventricular pressures and with the degree of distensibility of the left ventricle.