title: [The role of tissue Doppler imaging in diagnosis of pulmonary embolism].
abstract: Pulmonary embolism (PE), despite improvement of diagnostic methods often remains undiagnosed. Importantly, the lack of correct diagnosis is one of major factors negatively influencing the prognosis of PE for patients. Echocardiography is frequently performed on patients suspected of PE. However, the majority of signs reported by echocardiography only indirectly indicate PE. However, new parameters characteristic of pulmonary embolism by means of novel echo-cardiographic methods may increase the probability of a correct diagnosis, thus improving the prognosis in this group of patients. The aim of this study was to present a potential role of echo-cardiography with tissue Doppler imaging in diagnosing pulmonary embolism. Tissue Doppler echocardiography (TDE) is a based on the Doppler effect in order to assess movements of the heart structures. Due to a selective measurements of the velocities of selected fragments of myocardium, TDE allows for a fully quantitative and objective assessment of the regional myocardial function. One of the new parameters helpful in PE diagnosis is M-index, which is ratio of early diastolic mitral inflow velocity and right ventricular Tei index. M-index < 112, showed 92% sensitivity and 92% specificity for the PE diagnosis. Another parameter V-index, which is the ratio of right ventricular Tei index to left ventricular Tei index was assessed in PE diagnosis in patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH). The value of V-index > 1.2 confirmed PE with a sensitivity of 82% and a specificity of 83%. In our study, it was shown that patients with PE manifest hyperkinetic left ventricular function. Peak systolic velocity of the mitral annulus lateral portion (SmLV) = 5.5 cm/s had a sensitivity of 60% and a specificity of 86% in diagnosing PE in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF), whereas the ratio of peak systolic velocity of the tricuspid annulus to peak systolic velocity of the mitral annulus (SmRV/LV) = 1.2 showed a sensitivity of 76% and a specificity of 93% in diagnosing PE. The mentioned above date showing that echocardiography combined with tissue Doppler imaging may be useful in diagnosing PE.
authors: Oddział Chorób Wewnetrznych o Profilu Kardiologicznym i Nefrologicznym, Centrum Zdrowia Medica, Ostróda. lgol@op.pl
authors: Leszek
authors: L
authors: Gromadziński
authors: Beata
authors: B
authors: Januszko-Giergielewicz
authors: Ryszard
authors: R
authors: Targoński
authors: Piotr
authors: P
authors: Pruszczyk