Doppler diastolic filling indexes in relation to disease states

This study compares mean Doppler—derived diastolic filling indexes in a variety of disease states in a large, population-based sample. Pulse-wave Doppler was used to examine 880 eligible participants of the Framingham Heart Study. Peak velocity of early flow and late flow, ratio of early to late peak velocities, atrial filling fraction, and early filling wave acceleration and deceleration times were obtained. Multiple linear regression analyses were performed comparing mean values for individuals with hypertension, diabetes, coronary disease, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary disease. Hypertension was associated with a greater peak velocity late flow (0.027 m/sec; 95% confidence interval, 0.006, 0.047; p = 0.011), and diabetes was associated with a larger mean deceleration time (0.12 sec, confidence interval, 0.002, 0.021; p = 0.016). In multivariate analyses, hypertension continued to show a strong association with altered Doppler diastolic filling patterns, p value 0.009, whereas in diabetes, the multivariate p value was 0.28.