Effects of AV delay and VV delay on left atrial pressure and waveform in ambulant heart failure patients: insights into CRT optimization.

Background: We hypothesized that left atrial pressure (LAP) obtained by a permanent implantable sensor is sensitive to changes in cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) settings and could guide CRT optimization to improve the response rate. We investigated the effect of CRT optimization on LAP and its waveform parameters in ambulant heart failure (HF) patients.

Methods: CRT optimization was performed in eight ambulant HF patients, using echocardiography as reference.