AIM: Determination of the importance of exercise tissue Doppler echocardiography in prognostic stratification of congestive heart failure patients with systolic dysfunction. METHODS: 106 patients with congestive heart failure and LVEF ≤ 45% on optimal pharmacotherapy were included in the study. Results of resting and post-exercise echocardiography, cardiopulmonary exercise test and serum BNP levels were available for all patients. Two patient groups were constituted, based on the prognostic classification. Group I contained 21 patients with poor prognosis (defined by predicted value of pVO2 < 76% together with both VE/VCO2 slope > 32.7 and BNP > 210 pg/mL) and group II with 85 patients who did not meet the criteria. RESULTS: The patient groups significantly differed in indexed volume of left atrium, mitral regurgitation severity, rest and post-exercise systolic velocity of mitral annulus and in rest and post-exercise E/Em. Multivariate analysis identified E/Em as the only independent predictor of prognosis. E/Em at rest (post-exercise) ≥ 16.6 (≥ 18.7) defined poor prognosis with sensitivity of 71% (86%) and specificity of 71% (71%). CONCLUSION: Our study suggests usefulness of exercise tissue Doppler echocardiography for prognostic stratification of patients with congestive heart failure with possible superiority to resting parameters.

Internal Cardiology Department University Hospital Brno and Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

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