Sixty patients with pulmonary regurgitation were studied by the pulsed Doppler technique combined with two-dimensional and M-mode echocardiography. Patients with pulmonary regurgitation had abnormal Doppler signals just below the pulmonic valve in the right ventricular outflow tract in diastole on the two-dimensional image. These signals were considered to indicate the regurgitant flow. There a...

BACKGROUND Increased pulmonary capillary pressure (PCP) is one of the mechanisms of exercise intolerance. Assessment of the diastolic function by echocardiography (ECHO) enables estimation of PCP. OBJECTIVE To identify variables that determine the exercise capacity in patients undergoing routine exercise test (ET), conventional ECHO, and tissue Doppler imaging (TD). METHODS A total of 640 p...

Background Respiratory navigated, ECG-gated, 3D-isotropic steady state free precession (3D-SSFP) is increasingly utilized in pediatric aortopathy. This is particularly true in adolescents as acoustic windows become limited. The agreement between echocardiography (ECHO) and 3D-SSFP obtained measurements could be influence by imaging plane, timing (systole versus diastole) and image quality. With...

The normal cardiac cycle consists of two phases, systole and diastole, which are repeated over time to maintain an adequate cardiac output. The systole has been traditionally regarded as the main capital phase, leaving at diastole as a secondary process and almost forgotten. However, today we know that diastole is a crucial stage in the functioning of the heart. Its dysfunction can lead even in...

BACKGROUND Probability of survival from sudden cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation (VF) decreases rapidly with fibrillation duration. We hypothesized that cellular ischemia/fibrillation-induced electrophysiological deterioration underlies decreased survival. METHODS AND RESULTS We determined fibrillation monophasic action potential (MAP) morphology including action potential fre...

This letter is intended to extend the discussion of Bellamy's (1978) intriguing analysis of diastolic coronary artery pressure-flow relations in dogs during long diastoles. In reactive hyperemia (RH), he found practically linear diastolic pressure-flow relations. These linear pressure-flow relations led him to the conclusion that coronary resistance, R, remains constant during diastole, and con...