The impact of cardiac loading on a novel metric of left ventricular diastolic function in healthy middle-aged adults: Systolic-diastolic coupling.

Aims: Left ventricular (LV) restoring forces are primed by ventricular deformation during systole and contribute to cardiac relaxation and early diastolic suction. Systolic-diastolic coupling, the relationship between systolic contraction and diastolic recoil, is a novel marker of restoring forces, but the effect of left atrial pressure (LAP) is unknown. We tested preliminary methods of systolic-diastolic coupling comparing mitral annular velocities versus excursion distances and hypothesized a recoil/contraction distance ratio would remain unaffected across varying LAP, providing a surrogate for quantifying LV restoring forces.

The role of systolic-diastolic coupling in distinguishing impaired diastolic recoil in healthy aging and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

Background: Age-related changes to left ventricular (LV) early diastolic recoil confound the diagnostic value of e' velocity in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Systolic-diastolic coupling quantifies passive left ventricular elastic recoil and may be superior to e' in differentiating abnormal diastolic recoil in HFpEF from healthy aging. This study aims to determine the effect of healthy aging and HFpEF on systolic-diastolic coupling.