Background and Objectives: Intracardiac electrocardiograms (ECGs) from the coronary sinus (CS) provide important information for identifying a left-sided bypass tract. However, a previous study revealed an anatomical discrepancy between the CS and mitral annulus (MA) in cadaver hearts. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the anatomical relationship between the CS and MA in the living body...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the prevalence and significance of myocardial dysfunction in children with septic shock. STUDY DESIGN Thirty patients with septic shock were evaluated by transthoracic echocardiography within 24 hours of admission to a pediatric critical care unit. Transthoracic echocardiography evaluation included left ventricular (LV) size and function, mitral valve inflow velocities i...

AIMS Both strain and strain rate (SR) measure the regional myocardial deformation and can assess phasic left atrial (LA) function. However, there is still a lack of evidence for their volume independency. In this study, strain and SR determined by tissue Doppler imaging were used to evaluate the effect of preload reduction in end-stage renal disease patients who were undergoing regular haemodia...

The effect of functional mitral regurgitation has been investigated in an anatomically sized, fluid-structure interaction mitral valve model, where simulated correction has been performed by applying: (1) edge-to-edge repair with annuloplasty and (2) edge-to-edge repair only. Initially defined in an open unstressed/corrected configuration, fluid-structure interaction simulations of diastole hav...

The speed of closure of the mitral valve during diastole, as recorded by ultrasonocardiography, is reduced in patients with mitral stenosis. A pattern of movement similar to that of severe mitral stenosis is seen in recordingsfrom patients with normally functioning mitral Starr-Edwards prostheses. Simultaneous ultrasound recordings of ball and cage movements show that the prosthetic valve remai...

BACKGROUND We believe this is the first case report of a pneumothorax being identified using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. This case also illustrates the haemodynamic effect a large pneumothorax can have on right ventricular filling in diastole. CASE PRESENTATION A 26-year-old attended for an interval follow up Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) of his thoracic aorta after a thoracic co-a...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Left ventricular filling begins in the ventricular isovolumic relaxation phase. According to the Torrent-Guasp myocardial band theory, this phase results from the contraction of the final portion of the myocardial band: the ascending segment of the apical loop. The objectives were to study the myocardial mechanisms influencing transmitral flow during early diastole a...

Acute shifts in the pressure-volume relationship of the left ventricle occur under several conditions. One potential mechanism for this phenomenon is ventricular interdependence, that is, the influence of right ventricular filling on the left ventricle. This mechanism was studied in an isolated cross-circulated ejecting canine heart preparation with balloons sewn into both right and left ventri...

Shishido, Toshiaki, Masaru Sugimachi, Osamu Kawaguchi, Hiroshi Miyano, Toru Kawada, Wataru Matsuura, Yasuhiro Ikeda, and Kenji Sunagawa. Novel method to estimate ventricular contractility using intraventricular pulse wave velocity. Am. J. Physiol. 277 (Heart Circ. Physiol. 46): H2409–H2415, 1999.—We developed a novel technique for estimating ventricular contractility using intraventricular puls...

An unresolved issue in patients with diastolic dysfunction is that the estimation of myocardial stiffness cannot be decoupled from diastolic residual active tension (AT) because of the impaired ventricular relaxation during diastole. To address this problem, this paper presents a method for estimating diastolic mechanical parameters of the left ventricle (LV) from cine and tagged MRI measuremen...