Usefulness of echocardiographic left ventricular ejection fraction and silent myocardial ischemia in predicting new coronary events in elderly patients with coronary artery disease or systemic hypertension

Abstract

Left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF) remains normal in elderly persons with no evidence of heart disease. 1,2 We reported that an abnormal echocardiographic LVEF 3 and silent myocardial ischemia 4 significantly correlated with new coronary events in elderly patients with heart disease. In this report we give the results from our prospective study of 393 patients > 62 years old with coronary artery disease (CAD) or systemic hypertension correlating LVEF and silent ischemia with development of new cardiac events at 40-month mean follow-up.