Tissue Doppler Imaging Reproducibility during Exercise

Abstract

Tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) is an echocardiographic technique used during exercising to improve the accuracy of a cardiovascular diagnostic. The validity of TDI requires its reproducibility, which has never been challenged during moderate to maximal intensity exercising. The present study was specifically designed to assess the transmitral Doppler and pulsed TDI reproducibility in 19 healthy men, who had undergone two identical semi-supine maximal exercise tests on a cycle ergometer. Systolic (S') and diastolic (E') tissue velocities at the septal and lateral walls as well as early transmitral velocities (E) were assessed during exercise up to maximal effort. The data were compared between the two tests at 40 %, 60 %, 80 % and 100 % of maximal aerobic power. Despite upper body movements and hyperventilation, good quality echocardiographic images were obtained in each case. Regardless of exercise intensity, no differences were noticed between the two tests for all measurements. The variation coefficients for Doppler variables ranged from 3 % to 9 % over the transition from rest to maximal exercise. The random measurement error was, on average, 5.8 cm/s for E' and 4.4 cm/s for S'. Overall, the reproducibility of TDI was acceptable. Tissue Doppler imaging can be used to accurately evaluate LV diastolic and/or systolic function for this range of exercise intensity.

Phlebotomy eliminates the maximal cardiac output response to six weeks of exercise training

“…Finally, the applied echocardiographic methods could have missed some small alterations in heart structure and function considering the small sample size in the present study. However, these techniques are used in routine and very good reproducibility has been demonstrated in previous works from our laboratory (4,38) as well as by others (36). Moreover, other previous studies also reported no structural and/or functional changes in healthy untrained subjects after moderate intensity exercise training (16,48).…”

Myocardial function and aerobic fitness in adolescent females

“…Values for TDI-E 0 and TDI-S 0 , both being influenced by ventricular dimensions, were adjusted for LVED (Eidem et al 2004;Batterham et al 2008). Satisfactory reliability of this method during maximal exercise testing has been reported previously, with coefficients of variation ranging from 2.8 to 8.1% at maximal exercise (Bougault et al 2008;Rowland and Willers 2010).…”

The Effect of a Hyperdynamic Circulation on Tissue Doppler Values: A Simulation in Young Adults during Exercise

“…In our study, we obtained images in the supine left decubitus position immediately after exercise. Bougault has shown that left ventricular systolic and diastolic tissue Doppler imaging velocities are reproducible during exercise [13]. Further research is required in a sick cohort of patients to evaluate the impact of our findings.…”