Skip Navigation



European Heart Journal Advance Access published online on October 21, 2008
European Heart Journal, doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehn466
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
30/3/330    most recent
ehn466v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Haugaa, K. H.
Right arrow Articles by Amlie, J. P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Haugaa, K. H.
Right arrow Articles by Amlie, J. P.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2008. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
The online version of this article has been published under an open access model. Users are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal, Learned Society and Oxford University Press are attributed as the original place of publication with correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Left ventricular mechanical dispersion by tissue Doppler imaging: a novel approach for identifying high-risk individuals with long-QT syndrome

Kristina Hermann Haugaa1, Thor Edvardsen1, Trond P. Leren2, Jon Michael Gran3, Otto A. Smiseth1 and Jan P. Amlie1,*

1 Department of Cardiology, Rikshospitalet University Hospital, University of Oslo, N-0027 Oslo, Norway
2 Medical Genetics Laboratory, Department of Medical Genetics, Rikshospitalet University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
3 Department of Biostatistics, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Received 24 April 2008; revised 28 August 2008; accepted 29 September 2008.

* Corresponding author. Tel: +47 23072766, Fax: +47 23073530, Email: jamlie{at}rikshospitalet.no

Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate whether prolonged and dispersed myocardial contraction duration assessed by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) may serve as risk markers for cardiac events (documented arrhythmia, syncope, and cardiac arrest) in patients with long-QT syndrome (LQTS).

Methods and results: Seventy-three patients with genetically confirmed LQTS (nine double- and 33 single-mutation carriers with previous cardiac events and 31 single-mutation carriers without events) were studied. Myocardial contraction duration was prolonged in each group of LQTS patients compared with 20 healthy controls (P < 0.001). Contraction duration was longer in single-mutation carriers with previous cardiac events compared with those without (0.46 ± 0.06 vs. 0.40 ± 0.06 s, P = 0.001). Prolonged contraction duration could better identify cardiac events compared with corrected QT (QTc) interval in single-mutation carriers [area under curve by receiver-operating characteristic analysis 0.77 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.65–0.89] vs. 0.66 (95% CI 0.52–0.79)]. Dispersion of contraction was more pronounced in single-mutation carriers with cardiac events compared with those without (0.048 ± 0.018 vs. 0.031 ± 0.019 s, P = 0.001).

Conclusion: Dispersion of myocardial contraction assessed by TDI was increased in LQTS patients. Prolonged contraction duration was superior to QTc for risk assessment. These new methods can easily be implemented in clinical routine and may improve clinical management of LQTS patients.

Key Words: Long-QT syndrome • Echocardiography • Ventricular arrhythmia • Myocardial contraction • Dispersion


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Eur Heart JHome page
G. M. De Ferrari and P. J. Schwartz
Long QT syndrome, a purely electrical disease? Not anymore
Eur. Heart J., February 1, 2009; 30(3): 253 - 255.
[Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.