European heart journal cardiovascular Imaging
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Jul 2014
Multicenter Study Observational StudyEuropean multicentre validation study of the accuracy of E/e' ratio in estimating invasive left ventricular filling pressure: EURO-FILLING study.
The non-invasive estimation of left ventricular filling pressures (LVFPs) represents a main goal in the clinical setting. Current recommendations encourage the use of pulsed-wave Tissue Doppler for calculating the ratio between the preload-dependent transmitral E velocity and the average of septal and lateral early diastolic velocities (e') of the mitral annulus. Despite its wide use, real utility of the E/e' ratio has been recently challenged in patients with either very advanced heart failure or preserved left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction. However, only few studies performed the invasive and non-invasive estimation of LVFP simultaneously. The EURO-FILLING Study will validate the E/e' ratio (and additional non-invasive estimates) against simultaneously measured LVFP obtained by left heart catheterization in a multicentre study involving reference European echo laboratories collecting a wide population sample size of cardiac patients with and without heart failure. ⋯ The EURO-FILLING study is expected to provide important information on non-invasive assessment of LVFP and to contribute to the standardization of this assessment in clinical practice.