Tissue Doppler imaging of physiological asynchrony in intracardiac myocardium

: Tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) is one of the most widely used methods of quantitative assessment of asynchrony of ventricular myocardium movements. To study the parameters physiological asynchrony using TDI, we examined 32 healthy subjects (18 male, 14 female, mean age of 35.8 +/- 11.0) with no history and signs of cardiovascular disease. The putative relative parameters of systolic and diastolic asynchrony (intra- and interventricular heterogeneity at basal and mid level of 8 myocardial segments) and traditional absolute values (septolateral S-L delay, QE, TsSD, TESD intervals) were measured and compared. We have established the range of normal values of the relative physiological myocardium asynchrony factors in healthy persons, and found that systolic and diastolic asynchrony is more evident at the midventricular level compared to basal level, and diastolic asynchrony is more apparent than systolic; this fact is discussed in terms of single-layer spiral myocardium theory.