Doppler echocardiographic assessment of impaired left ventricular filling in patients with right ventricular pressure overload due to primary pulmonary hypertension.

In patients with primary pulmonary hypertension, competition between the right and left ventricles for the limited pericardial space results in distortion of left ventricular geometry reflected in displacement of the ventricular septum toward the left ventricular cavity. Left ventricular shape is most dramatically deranged at end-systole and early diastole, suggesting the possibility that the distribution of left ventricular diastolic filling might be altered. To investigate this hypothesis, nine patients with primary pulmonary hypertension and nine normal individuals were studied with echocardiographic techniques. Left ventricular isovolumic relaxation time was significantly prolonged in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension by comparison with normal individuals (129 +/- 36 versus 53 +/- 9 ms, p less than 0.005) and the fraction of the transmitral flow velocity integral occurring in the first half of diastole was significantly less than in normal individuals (38 +/- 14% versus 70 +/- 9%, p less than 0.005). Measurement of fractional changes in short-axis left ventricular cavity area similarly demonstrated that in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension fractional early diastolic cavity expansion (32 +/- 11%) was significantly less than in normal individuals (78 +/- 9%, p less than 0.005). In patients with primary pulmonary hypertension, the ventricular septum was abnormally flattened toward the left ventricular cavity at end-systole (normalized septal curvature 0.04 +/- 0.19) and remained that way throughout early diastolic filling but returned toward normal at end-diastole (normalized septal curvature 0.68 +/- 0.19, p less than 0.005).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)