Stress echocardiography in the diagnosis of cardiac dysfunction in the early post-infarction period

The purpose — to assess the importance of stress echocardiography in identifying the nature and severity of cardiac dysfunction in patients with myocardial infarction. Material and methods.86 patients were examined at the outpatient stage of rehabilitation 6 weeks after myocardial infarction with primary coronary angioplasty with stenting. Results.Echocardiography revealed left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in 34 patients with myocardial infarction with concomitant arterial hypertension. Patients with LVH are characterized by more pronounced structural and functional LV remodeling, which is expressed in a lower LVEF and increased LVEDD, LVESVand LVEDV(p<0.05). There were no differences in stroke volume between patients with and without LVH. The performed diastolic stress test in patients with LVH is characterized by significantly lower average early diastolic mitral annular velocity e` (7.6 vs. 9.3 cm/s, p<0.01) without differences in the peak early transmitral Doppler flow velocity E (69.8 vs 78.0, p>0.05) compared with patients without LVH. The revealed differences between patients with and without LVH are due to a higher post-exercise velocity e` in patients with normal LV geometry and a decrease in eccentric LVH subgroup. Conclusions.1) Patients with LVH in the early postinfarction period (6 weeks) have more pronounced LV systolic dysfunction, expressed in a decrease in LVEF and an increase in LVEDD, LVESV, LVEDV compared to patients without LVH.2) Left ventricular hypertrophy, in conditions of myocardial infarction, is associated with latent diastolic dysfunction, which is manifested by a lower average early diastolic mitral annular velocity e` after the stress-test.