Physiological range of mechanical synchronicity of the human heart: Comparison between different echocardiographic assessment modalities

Tissue Doppler was performed to assess physiological ranges of mechanical synchronicity in 47 patients aged 38 to 81 y with normal coronary angiograms, ECG recordings and echocardiographic findings. Maximal time delays between two different left ventricular (LV) walls in long axis time-to-peak tissue displacement (TD_D), respectively in time-to-peak strain (TD_S), time-to-peak strain rate (TD_SR), time-to-peak systolic (TD_VS) and early diastolic (TD_VE) velocities of basal and midwall segments were determined as values corrected for heart rate in a 16-segment LV model and in the right ventricle (RV). Strain (TD_S: LV = 212 ± 108 ms, RV = 195 ± 15 ms) and strain rate (TD_SR: LV = 183 ± 67 ms, RV = 120 ± 60 ms) showed the highest dyssynchrony values (TD_D: LV = 110 ± 96 ms, RV = 42 ± 38 ms; TD_VS: LV = 82 ± 47 ms, RV = 36 ± 36 ms; TD_VE: LV = 73 ± 36 ms, RV = 46 ± 20 ms) in both ventricles. There was no significant association between a certain LV wall and the occurrence of the earliest, respectively latest peak values of any parameter. (E-mail: poerner@t-online.de)