Clinical significance of right ventricular function in the cases with congestive heart failure

Recently, right and left ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF and LVEF) were accurately assessed by gated blood pool scan and these clinical parameters were applied to evaluate the pre and postoperative evaluation of ischemic, valvular and congenital heart disease. This study was under taken to investigate the clinical significance of right ventricular function in the case with congestive heart failure which had lower LVEF (≤35%). There were divided into three groups: (A) 37 cases of myocardial infarction with normal RVEF (RVEF>46%), (B) 16 cases of myocardial infarction with decreased RVEF (RVEF≤46%) and (C) 20 cases of dilated cardiomyopathy with decreased RVEF (RVEF≤46%). Group (B) had increased pulmonary artery pressure, and left ventricular end-diastolic pressure. The incidence of recurrent attack and multivessel disease were not different between group (A) and (B), however, the exercise tolerance was decreased in group (B), Group (C) had also decreased exercise tolerance. These data demonstrated that decreased RVEF in congestive heart failure had high risk sub-group, and RVEF correlated with exercise tolerance compared to LVEF. (author)