Clinical Utility of Mechanical Echocardiographic Dispersion to Assess Left Ventricular Function and Ischemia or Infarction Detected by Gated 99M‐Tc Sestamibi‐SPECT

BACKGROUND: Coronary artery disease (CAD) remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular (LV) asynchrony may provide additional value for detecting ischemia or infarction. OBJECTIVES: To assess the systolic and diastolic mechanical dispersion (MD) by 3D-echocardiography and its correlation with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and ischemia or infarction by myocardial perfusion study (MPS) gated 99m-Tc Sestamibi-SPECT. METHODS: Cross-sectional study of patients with angina. Systolic and diastolic MD were defined as the standard deviation (SD) of the time to reach minimum ventricular volume, corrected for the R-R interval. Association with LVEF was assessed with correlation and linear regression. ROC curves identified ischemia or infarction and compared with E/A ratio, TRIVI, and E/e' ratio. RESULTS: 205 patients were studied with median age 62 (IQR: 54-69) years. 51% (n = 104) presented ischemia or infarction. We observed a negative correlation with systolic (r = -0.343, 95% -0.459 to -0.215; p < 0.001) and diastolic (r = -0.184, 95% -0.314 to -0.047; p < 0.01) MD and MPS-LVEF, which contributes to 8.9% and 11.8% of variance, respectively. Both parameters displayed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.634 (95% 0.559-0.709, p < 0.001) and 0.604 (95% CI 0.527-0.679, p < 0.001) are shown to detect ischemia/infarction. In patients with transmural infarction the AUC for systolic MD improved to 0.691 (95% 0.582-0.801, p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Systolic and diastolic MD are useful and simple parameters for assessment of LV function and ischemia or infarction.