Marked changes in right ventricular contractile pattern after cardiothoracic surgery: Implications for post-surgical assessment of right ventricular function

After cardiac surgery, the RV contractile pattern changes, with a relative loss of longitudinal shortening and gain in transverse shortening despite normal global RV function. These findings have major implications for quantitative assessment of RV function after cardiac surgery, suggesting that global measures of RV function assessment may be preferred in this setting and that lower normative ranges should be used when measurement of RV function is performed with longitudinal methods.