Left ventricular regional relaxation and its nonuniformity in hypertrophic nonobstructive cardiomyopathy

BACKGROUND. Regional nonuniformity has been suggested to be closely related to left ventricular (LV) relaxation in diseased heart. The purpose of the present study was to assess LV global and regional relaxation in patients with nonobstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). METHODS AND RESULTS. Left ventriculography was conducted simultaneously with pressure micromanometry in 10 normal control subjects and 11 patients with nonobstructive HCM. LV silhouettes in the right anterior oblique projection were divided into eight regions, and regional wall stress during isovolumic relaxation was computed for six regions from the midventricle to the apex. In HCM patients, isovolumic relaxation time (IRT) and the time constant of LV pressure decrease (Tp) were greater than in control subjects (IRT, 84 +/- 13 versus 66 +/- 6 msec; Tp, 51 +/- 8 versus 36 +/- 5 msec, respectively; p less than 0.01). In HCM patients, the (-)dP/dt upstroke pattern was convex-downward, and dP/dt(20/60), the ratio of dP/dt values 20 and 60 msec after peak (-)dP/dt, was less than in control subjects (1.46 +/- 0.16 versus 2.15 +/- 0.14, p less than 0.01). These findings suggest that there is impaired LV relaxation in HCM patients. End-systolic regional wall stress was lower, and the time constant of regional stress decrease (Tst) was prolonged for each region in HCM patients compared with control subjects. In the HCM group, Tst tended to be more prolonged in regions with increased wall thickness than in regions with normal wall thickness (60 +/- 15 versus 50 +/- 11 msec, p less than 0.01). The coefficient of variation for Tst values in six areas of the left ventricle was calculated in each subject and was greater in HCM patients than in control subjects (13 +/- 7% versus 7 +/- 3%, p less than 0.05), indicating regional nonuniformity in Tst during isovolumic relaxation in HCM patients. CONCLUSIONS. Significant correlations existed between the coefficients of variation for Tst and Tp (r = 0.80, p less than 0.01), IRT (r = 0.79, p less than 0.01), and dP/dt(20/60) (r = -0.67, p less than 0.05) in the HCM group. Thus, regional nonuniformity is closely related to the impairment of LV relaxation in HCM.