Reduction in the rate of diastolic descent of the mitral valve echogram in patients with altered left ventricular diastolic pressure-volume relations.

Echocardiographic measurements of the rate of descent of the E wave of the anterior leaflet of the mitral valve during diastole (the mitral valve slope) have been said to correlate with the rate of early left ventricular (LV) filling. Thus, a reduced mitral valve slope in the absence of mitral valve obstruction might be related to impaired LV filling secondary to decreased diastolic compliance. In this study mitral valve slope was compared to several estimates of LV compliance and to the LV end diastolic pressure (EDP) in 32 patients undergoing diagnostic cardiac catheterization: nine normal, 11 coronary artery disease (CAD), seven congestive cardiomyopathy (CC), five left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). Assuming an exponential relation between pres-