Assessment of Left Ventricular Dyssynchrony in Heart Failure Patients Regarding Underlying Etiology and QRS Duration

BACKGROUND: Left ventricular (LV) dyssynchrony is a prevalent feature in heart failure (HF) patients. The current study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of inter and intraventricular dyssynchrony in HF patients with regard to the QRS duration and etiology. METHODS: The available data on the tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) of 230 patients with refractory HF were analyzed. The patients were divided into three groups according to the QRS duration: QRS duration < 120 ms; 120–150 ms; and ≥ 150 ms and the patients were re-categorized into two subgroups depending on the underlying etiology: ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) or dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). The time-to-peak myocardial sustained systolic velocity (Ts) in six basal and six middle segments of the LV was measured manually using the velocity curves from TDI. LV dyssynchrony was defined as interventricular mechanical delay ≥ 40 ms and tissue Doppler velocity all segments delay ≥ 105 ms; standard deviation (SD) of all segments ≥ 34.4 ms; basal segments delay ≥ 78 ms; SD of basal segments ≥ 34.5 ms; and opposing wall delay ≥ 65 ms. RESULTS: After adjustment for the possible confounders, interventricular dyssynchrony was more prevalent in the patients with QRS duration ≥ 150 ms than in those with QRS duration 120–150 ms and < 120 ms. The patients with DCM also had a higher percentage of interventricular dyssynchrony than those with ICM in the wide QRS groups. Turning to the intraventricular dyssynchrony indices, the patients with QRS duration ≥ 150 ms and 120–150 ms revealed a significantly greater delay between Ts at the basal and all segments than did those with QRS duration < 120 ms, while etiology did not influence the frequency of these indices in each QRS group. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of both inter and intraventricular dyssynchrony indices was greater in the patients with wide QRS than in those with narrow QRS duration. The underlying etiology may affect the frequency of interventricular but not intraventricular dyssynchrony indices.