Diastolic Assessment: Application of the New ASE Guidelines

Purpose of Review

The purpose of this review is to summarize the new guidelines from the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) and the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) for the diagnosis and grading of diastolic dysfunction (DD), with commentary on the rationale behind the use of the recommended individual parameters.

Recent Findings

Previous guidelines for assessment of diastolic function have been criticized for being too complex with modest diagnostic performance and inter-observer variability.

Summary

The new ASE/EACVI diastology guidelines aim to simplify the diagnosis and gradation of DD by using a limited set of echocardiographic variables. The robustness of these recommendations has been subsequently validated in several trials. Understanding the physiological principles that govern changes in echocardiographic parameters during normal and abnormal diastolic function is critical for the appropriate application of these recommendations.