Echocardiographic evaluation of ventricular function in young adults with bronchial asthma

Abstract

BackgroundBronchial asthma (BA) is a common chronic inflammatory condition affecting the airways. Bronchial asthma not only affects the lung but also affects other organs including the heart. Right ventricular (RV) hypertrophy and dilation and left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction were observed in severe BA. However, evaluation of ventricular function in this disease by the use of recently proposed Doppler echocardiographic methods has not been extensively studied before. PurposeThe aim of this study was to evaluate ventricular function in young adult patients with BA. Patients and methodsFifty patients with bronchial asthma and 30 control subjects (mean ages 28.3±7.0 and 26.8±6.2years, respectively) participated in this study. Systolic function was assessed by subjective evaluation of wall motion for both ventricles and by fractional shortening for the left ventricle (LV). LV diastolic function was evaluated by standard pulsed-wave Doppler echocardiography, myocardial performance index (MPI) and transmitral flow propagation velocity (TFPV). RV function was evaluated by MPI. No subject had signs or symptoms of clinically overt heart failure. ResultsOur results revealed that there were statistically significant differences in the peak E velocity, peak E velocity/peak A velocity ratio and isovolumetric relaxation time between the two groups (p<0.05). Mean LV MPI in the bronchial asthma group (0.40±0.13) was also significantly higher than that of the controls (0.36±0.11, p<0.05). On the other hand, there were no significant differences in the mean value of peak A velocity, deceleration time and isovolumetric contraction time between bronchial asthma patients and controls. TFPV was significantly reduced in the bronchial asthma group when compared to controls (37.10±2.13 versus 43.40±3.11, respectively, p=0.001). We observed no significant difference in the echocardiographic indices of RV performance between the two groups. The mean RV MPI in the bronchial asthma group (0.29±0.11) was not significantly different from that of the controls (0.27±0.08). ConclusionFrom this study we concluded that LV diastolic function is impaired in patients with bronchial asthma despite no effect on RV diastolic function.