RESEARCH ARTICLE
Revision of Echocardiographic Indications and Findings in Neurologically Ill Patients
Claudia Stöllberger1, *, Christian Wegner2, Josef Finsterer1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 11
First Page: 14
Last Page: 18
Publisher ID: TOCMJ-11-14
DOI: 10.2174/1874192401711010014
Article History:
Received Date: 02/11/2016Revision Received Date: 29/12/2016
Acceptance Date: 13/1/2017
Electronic publication date: 31/01/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background and Objective:
Little is known about the general indications for echocardiography and the prevalence of abnormalities detected by echocardiography in patients who are referred from a neurological department. Left ventricular hypertrabeculation/noncompaction (LVHT) is associated with neuromuscular disorders and embolism. The aim of the study was to assess the indications for echocardiography in patients from a neurological department and to review the cine-loops of the examinations in order to assess the frequency of abnormal echocardiographic findings with special regard to LVHT.
Methods and Results:
Included were 126 patients, 58 females (mean age 65 years). Indications were stroke (84%), heart failure (6%), endocarditis (6%) and arrhythmia (3%). The most frequent abnormalities were impaired relaxation (71%) and left ventricular wall thickening (63%). Females were older (68 vs. 62 years, p = 0.0214) and more frequently had normally sized left ventricles than males (98 vs. 88%, p = 0.0376). Patients ≥66 years more frequently had stroke as an indication (91 vs. 77%, p = 0.05), showed a thickened myocardium (72 vs. 53%, p = 0.0272), valvular abnormalities (52 vs. 13%, p = 0.0000) and impaired relaxation (86 vs. 54%, p = 0.0001) than patients <66 years.
LVHT was diagnosed in 3 patients; in one of them the diagnosis was already known. In 45% LVHT and in 38% left ventricular thrombus could neither be excluded nor established since the image quality was poor.
Conclusion:
Care should be taken to visualize the left ventricular apical regions when investigating patients referred from a neurologic department in order not to overlook LVHT and thrombi within the left ventricular apex.
