Reply

Abstract

TO THE EDITOR: We appreciate the interest in our study regarding the longitudinal atrioventricular (AV)-plane contribution to stroke volume in healthy adults, athletes, and patients with severely decreased ejection fraction. Our results showed that the longitudinal AV-plane motion is the largest contributor to stroke volume in these groups. In our study we did not, however, include patients with mild and moderately decreased ejection fraction. In their letter to the editor, Ballo et al. (1) therefore comment that caution is required in extending the conclusions of our study to patients with intermediate systolic impairment. We agree that further studies are warranted to determine the AV-plane contribution to stroke volume in patients with intermediate systolic dysfunction.