Quantitative tissue Doppler echocardiography in comparison with M-mode measurement in healthy subjects

Quantitative tissue Doppler echocardiography is a new diagnostic approach to left ventricular systolic performance. The aim of the present study was to validate a recently developed method based on the computer software TDI-Labor(R) enabling a variable time and space related measurement of regional wall velocity from tissue Doppler images. Therefore, in 63 volunteers the mean velocity of a 2 mm thick subendocardial slice during the systolic ejection period was determined from frozen tissue Doppler M-mode images of the left ventricular posterior wall obtained using the left parasternal window. The same images were employed for comparative measurement of the mean endocardial velocity using the conventional M-mode slope approach. Tissue Doppler data of the subendocardial wall velocity were found to correspond closely to the mean endocardial wall velocity (y = 0.97x + 0.17; r = 0.77; p < 0.0001). The average wall motion gradient of the population was 1.33 +/- 0.35. Wall motion velocity and wall motion gradient were shown to be not age dependent. The new software approach to an improved analysis of wall motion offering any sized sample volumes and time intervals for wall velocity measurements can be regarded as an exact and easily feasible method. Further clinical and experimental investigations are needed to evaluate its diagnostic relevance to the detection of ischemia and other myocardial dysfunction.