Improvement of left ventricular diastolic function after alcohol septal ablation for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy? Yes, of course, but ...
Abstract
Recently, I have read with a great interest a very important paper by Jassalet. The authors reported their results of noninvasive evaluation of left ventricular (LV) diastolic function in 30 selected patients with a highly symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) treated by alcohol septal ablation (ASA).
The authors concluded that positive changes in Doppler variables are likely to be due to the improvement of LV relaxation following ASA. Similarly, we have shown the improvement of isovolumic relaxation time after ASA and, moreover, the improvement of Teiindex which incorporates both systolic and diastolic time intervals for expressing global ventricular performance.However, in fact, the observation by Jassalet is the first study to provide a comprehensive evidence that ASA leads to sustainedimprovement in LV diastolic function.