Mechanocardiographic effects of an elevated central venous pressure.

Since 1985 we demonstrated that the increase of left ventricular mean diastolic pressure shortens the interval existing between the onset of the electrocardiographic P-wave and the onset of the left apexcardiographic "a"-wave (Aubert et al., 1981; Mortarino et al., 1985).

Reliability of standard apexcardiography for the measurement of sudden variations in mean pulmonary capillary wedge pressure.

We simultaneously registered the left apexcardiogram together with the left intraventricular pressure curve immediately before and after ventricular angiography in order to evaluate whether the relation existing between apexcardiographic protodiastolic filling period duration (cR interval) and left ventricular mean diastolic pressure (LVMDP) was maintained even in the presence of sudden variations of LVMDP. Administration of contrast media resulted in a significant increase of LVMDP (from 11.8 to 23.

Mechanocardiographic effects of ACE-inhibitors.

Twenty-one subjects who suffered a recent medium sized anterior myocardial infarction conditioning a mild congestive heart failure were randomly allocated to treatment with captopril (25 mg b.i.d.

Evaluation of noninvasive alternatives to right heart catheterization.

We mechanocardiographically evaluated 50 patients with acute myocardial infarction, invasively monitored by Swan-Ganz catheters, in order to assess if mechanocardiography could provide reliable hemodynamic informations. The last 25 subjects were also studied by pulsed Doppler echocardiography. Our results confirm the high precision of apexcardiography in assessing mean pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (r = 0.