Echocardiography is the most commonly used modality for evaluating left ventricular size and function in the context of systolic heart failure. Traditional techniques, though extensively used, have their limitations and more recently several newer technologies have emerged that are more reproducible, provide prognostic information, guide therapies and have an important role in monitoring progre...

reduced longevity.1 Heart failure can be due to systolic or diastolic left ventricular dysfunction. Most patients with heart failure have primarily systolic dysfunction. In two-thirds of patients with systolic dysfunction, the cause is coronary artery disease.2 However, patients may also have nonischaemic causes of cardiomyopathy such as hypertension, valvular heart disease, myocarditis, system...

b Blockers have been shown to reverse left ventricular remodelling (LVR) and to reduce the severity of functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) in patients with chronic systolic heart failure. It is unclear, however, to what extent the beneficial effects of b blockers on LVR or FMR are influenced by the severity of left ventricular dilatation or FMR at the time of commencement of b blocker treatme...

abstract introduction: doppler echocardiography is used to evaluate global myocardial performance. an index of myocardial performance (tei index) can be of great prognostic value in heart failure. this study was performed to assess the correlation between tei index (ti) and left ventricular end diastolic pressure (lvedp). methods: the study group consisted of 38 patients. each patient underwent...

AIMS To determine the prevalence of heart failure and symptomatic as well as asymptomatic left ventricular systolic dysfunction in the general population. METHODS AND RESULTS In 5540 participants of the Rotterdam Study (age 68.9+/-8.7 years, 2251 men) aged 55-95 years, the presence of heart failure was determined by assessment of symptoms and signs (shortness of breath. ankle oedema and pulmo...

The impact of baseline systolic blood pressure (SBP) on outcomes in patients with advanced chronic systolic heart failure (HF) has not been studied using a propensity-matched design. Of the 2,706 participants in the Beta-Blocker Evaluation of Survival Trial (BEST) with chronic HF, New York Heart Association class III to IV symptoms and left ventricular ejection fraction < or =35%, 1,751 had SBP...

BACKGROUND Although cardiac auscultation remains important to detect abnormal sounds and murmurs indicative of cardiac pathology, the application of electronic methods remains seldom used in everyday clinical practice. In this report we provide preliminary data showing how the phonocardiogram can be analyzed using color spectrographic techniques and discuss how such information may be of future...

OBJECTIVE To delineate more precisely an operational threshold for making clinical decisions based on ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) measurement by studying the ABP in subjects who were diagnosed as either normotensive or hypertensive by conventional blood pressure (CBP) measurement. SUBJECTS Twenty-four research groups recruited 7069 subjects. Of these, 4577 were normotensive (CBP < or = 14...

But what do we do when one number is at goal and the other is not? It is clear that in individuals younger than 50 years, diastolic BP (DBP) is the better predictor of future complications of hypertension, whereas in those 50 years and older, systolic BP (SBP) is a better predictor of future complication risk. Most individuals with hypertension are 50 years or older, and for these patients, SBP...

BACKGROUND The aim of this prospective study was to assess the diagnostic value of NT-proBNP and the concordance with Tissue Doppler Echocardiography (including strain and longitudinal displacement) in diastolic and systolic heart failure. METHODS AND RESULTS 137 consecutive clinically stable patients were included (42 healthy controls, 43 with diastolic heart failure, 52 with systolic heart ...