Abstract
Objective: To correlate functional class of dyspnea with left ventricular diastolic dysfunction assessed by echocardiography.
Methodology: This was a single center descriptive study, conducted in Cardiology department Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar from March 2011 to October 2011. All male and female patients of any age with clinical diagnosis of heart failure with sinus rhythm and no to minimal mitral regurgitation were included in the study, using consecutive non-probability sampling technique. Six minute walk test was performed to place the patients in proper NYHA Class of dyspnea. Detailed echocardiographic study was performed to document left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. The data was analyzed on SPSS version 16. Spearman rank correlation coefficient was used to measure the strength of association between pairs of variables. P-value <= 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: A total of 113 patients were included. Mean age was 58.42 +/- 10.48 (35-80). Male patients were 61.9% and 38.1% were female. Most of the patients were in NYHA Class II (34.5%) and Class III (37.2%). There was not a single patient who had normal diastolic relaxation pattern and majority of the patients had pseudonormal pattern of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (60.2%) followed by restrictive pattern, i-e; 34.5%. Mean values of Mitral inflow velocities were; E velocity 0.6 m/sec, A velocity 0.6 m/sec, E/A 1.3. It was found that with increasing dyspnea, left ventricular diastolic function was also declining (gamma: 0.204, p= 0.025).
Conclusion: In patients with heart failure there is significant correlation between functional class of dyspnea and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction.