Diastolic left ventricular functional indices: Comparison between gated myocardial perfusion SPECT and echocardiography

Introduction: Many patients have only diastolic dysfunction without any abnormality in systolic function. We compared cardiac diastolic parameters obtained by gated myocardial perfusion SPECT (Gated SPECT) with those evaluated by echocardiography. Methods: Forty-nine patients (aged 37-85 years, 19 males and 30 women) underwent Gated SPECT and echocardiography. Gated SPECT images were obtained with 16 frame/cardiac cycles. We derived the following diastolic indices: peak filling rate (PFR), time to PFR (TTPFR), mean filling rate in the first 1/3 of the diastole (MFR/3) and second filling rate (PFR2) due to left atrial contraction. In echocardiography we obtained the indices of ventricular filling: E wave, A wave, the E/A ratio, and the E wave deceleration time (DT) were considered. The LV isovolumic relaxation time (IVRT) was also determined. Results: There was no significant correlation between echocardiographic findings and diastolic gated SPECT findings. Using Post-Hoc One-way analysis significant difference was seen only in MFR/3 between diastolic dysfunction groups (P value=0.02). There was no significant difference in other diastolic gated SPECT variables in these groups. Conclusion: Diastolic parameters obtained from 16-frame/cardiac cycle gated SPECT didn’t correlate with echocardiographic indices.