Does atrioventricular ring motion always distinguish constriction from restriction? A Doppler myocardial imaging study

Constrictive pericarditis and restrictive cardiomyopathy can be difficult to differentiate on clinical examination, Cardiac ultrasonography is increasingly being used as the noninvasive method of choice for confirming the specific morphologic and hemodynamic abnormalities associated with either condition. interrogation of atrioventricular valve plane motion by Doppler myocardial imaging (DMI) has been suggested as a valuable new approach that can help differentiate one from the other. We report the color DMI, pulsed DMI, and strain rate findings in 2 cases of constrictive pericarditis in which consideration of the annular motion pattern alone would not have allowed such differentiation.