Verification of Echocardiographic Assessment of Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction in Patients With Preserved Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction Using the American Society of Echocardiography and European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging 2016 Recommendations

Background: Non-invasive evaluation of left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction (DD) and elevated LV filling pressure are crucial for diagnosing heart failure. The 2016 American Society of Echocardiography/European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (ASE/EACVI) recommendations for evaluating elevated LV filling pressure (algorithm B) have acceptable diagnostic accuracy, including in patients with reduced LV ejection fraction (EF). No prior study, however, has assessed the diagnostic accuracy of algorithm A of the ASE/EACVI recommendations for evaluating LVDD in patients with normal LVEF. Methods and Results: We evaluated the clinical relevance of algorithm A in 94 patients who underwent invasive LV pressure measurement. Algorithm A identified invasively defined LVDD (time constant τ≥48 ms and/or LV end-diastolic pressure ≥16 mmHg) with low sensitivity (22.4%) but high specificity (90.7%). Algorithm A also identified elevated LV filling pressure with low sensitivity (41.7%) but high specificity (87.5%), and with a high negative predictive value (90.9%). Conclusions: Algorithm A may not be useful for screening LVDD in patients with normal LVEF. Negative findings using algorithm A, however, may identify a patient with normal LVDD with high specificity, and most of such patients will have LV pre-A pressure in the normal range.