• The measurement of ventricular volume enhances the ability to appraise ventricular performance. The development of the thermodilutdon method for estimating stroke volume (SV), end systolic volume (ESV), and end diastolic volume (EDV) allowed us to reexamine myocardial function at progressive degrees of ischemic injury produced by repeated embolizations of the coronary artery. We determined le...

We analyzed data from 68 consecutive patients with congestive cardiomyopathy to evaluate the prognostic significance of quantitative morphologic findings in left ventricular myocardium as compared with the prognostic significance of left ventricular hemodynamics. Left ventricular endomyocardial biopsy specimens were obtained from all patients during diagnostic heart catheterization. Myocardial ...

The pressure gradient technique was used to evaluate effects of respiration on left ventricular stroke volume in 22 patients: 11 normal patients; eight patients with airway obstruction; and three patients with pericardial tamponade. In normals, stroke volume, systolic pressure, and pulse pressure fell an average of 7, 3 and 11% (P < 0.01), respectively, during inspiration. In patients with airw...

A safe, rapid method for estimating left ventricular volume in man during the course of hemodynamic studies should prove helpful in the assessment of cardiac disease and useful in physiological research. It is the purpose of this report to present left ventricular volume measurements in man that were obtained by an indicator dilution method which employs cold as the indicator. This circulatory ...

BACKGROUND The effects of volatile anesthetics on left atrial function in vivo have not been described. The authors tested the hypothesis that desflurane, sevoflurane, and isoflurane alter left atrial mechanics evaluated with invasively derived pressure-volume relations. METHODS Barbiturate-anesthetized dogs (n = 24) were instrumented for measurement of aortic, left atrial, and left ventricul...

OBJECTIVE To assess independent determinants of beat to beat variation in left ventricular performance during atrial fibrillation. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING University hospital. PATIENTS Seven patients with chronic non-valvar atrial fibrillation. INTERVENTIONS Invasive and non-invasive haemodynamic variables were assessed using a non-imaging computerised nuclear probe, a balloon...

In an attempt to develop a new approach to the non-invasive measurement of aortic regurgitation, transmitral volumetric flow (MF) and left ventricular total stroke volume (SV) were measured by Doppler and cross sectional echocardiography in 23 patients without aortic valve disease (group A) and in 26 patients with aortic regurgitation (group B). The transmitral volumetric flow was obtained by m...