Assessment of systolic ventricular muscle function in man: the end systolic index.

Accurate assessment of ventricular muscle contractile function in patients with heart disease is impaired by alterations in afterload, preload and wall thickness which often accompany the disease. The relationship between pressure and volume at end systole is considered to provide a contractile index which is independent of preload and which accounts for afterload. Use of the index prerequisites determinations of the left ventricular end systolic pressure, wall thickness as well as the dimensions or volumes, respectively, which may be assessed with either invasive or noninvasive methods. In patients with aortic stenosis and congestive heart failure, there was a significantly reduced slope (0.9 +/- 0.5) of the end systolic stress-volume relationship as compared with healthy subjects (5.8 +/- 1.3) or patients with aortic stenosis without congestive heart failure (3.9 +/- 1.3), while the ejection fraction showed no significant differences. In patients with mitral regurgitation with no or only minimal symptoms postoperatively, preoperatively the end systolic index (ESS/ESVI) was higher (3.3 +/- 0.4) than in patients with marked symptoms postoperatively or those who died perioperatively (2.2 +/- 0.2) and the values of both patient groups were lower than those of normals. In contrast, the values for ejection fraction among the normals and both groups of patients showed substantial overlap. In patients with aortic insufficiency and congestive heart failure, as opposed to patients with aortic insufficiency and only slight symptoms, there was a significantly compromised ejection fraction as well as diminished end systolic index (ESS/ESVI). Patients with hypertension accompanied by congestive heart failure had a significantly diminished slope of the relationship between end systolic left ventricular stress and volume while the values for hypertensive patients without congestive heart failure were within normal limits; in both groups of patients, the ejection fraction was normal. In patients with mitral stenosis, the end systolic index at 5.28 +/- 0.53 did not differ significantly from that of healthy subjects at 4.87 +/- 0.53, while the velocity of circumferential fiber shortening was diminished. Patients with large atrial septal defects and symptoms of congestive heart failure did not differ with respect to end systolic index or ejection fraction as compared with atrial septum defect patients without symptoms. In children with aortic stenosis and high pressure gradients, there was an increased ejection fraction together with a normal end systolic index.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)