A Novel Integrated Score Index of Echocardiographic Indices for the Evaluation of Left Ventricular Diastolic Function

BACKGROUND: We propose a novel integrated score index, which could be used to quantify and grade left ventricular (LV) diastolic function. METHODS: We enrolled 629 participants [393 healthy subjects, 145 with hypertension (HTN), 24 with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), and 67 with coronary artery disease (CAD)]. This score index was with a score of 1 for an E/A ratio < 1, a score of 1 for a septal e’/a’ ratio ≤ 0.8, a score of 2 for a lateral e’/a’ ratio ≤ 1, a score of 2 for a septal E/e’ ratio ≥10–15, a score of 3 for a lateral E/e’ ratio ≥8–15, and a score of 1 for a deceleration time >240 ms. The sum of each score was considered as the final value in this scoring method (either a septal or a lateral E/e’ ratio > 15 was given a total score of 10, regardless of the other measurements). RESULTS: After analysis, the AUROC of this integrated score index for predicting any diastolic dysfunction (discriminated by the American Society of Echocardiography guidelines) was 0.962, and the AUROC of the method from the logistic regression was 0.970. The mean values of the score index for the groups were 3.81 ± 0.12 in healthy, 6.48 ± 0.19 in HTN, 7.35 ± 0.46 in HCM, and 6.62 ± 0.29 in CAD. Using the score index, the healthy subjects obtained lower scores compared with those of HTN (p = 0.00), HCM (p = 0.00), and CAD (p = 0.00). Therefore, this score index could discriminate patients with diseases with impaired diastolic function from the healthy subjects when the total sum of the score was equal to or greater than 4. CONCLUSIONS: If the presently used methods cannot allow the clear diagnosis of LV diastolic dysfunction, this integrated score index might be helpful for discriminating diseases with impaired diastolic function.