Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Pediatrics

Aim: To evaluate systolic and diastolic cardiac function in children who had cardiomyopathy induced by ectopic atrial tachycardia (EAT).Methods: twenty-two pediatric patients who had cardiomyopathy induced by EAT and 25 age-matched controls were recruited in this case-control study. The patients were examined after rhythm control and normalization of their left ventricular systolic function. Different echocardiographic modalities including tissue Doppler imaging and two dimention speckle tracking echocardiography were utilized to assess the ventricular and atrial function.Results: The patients' median age was 51 months (interquartile range: 28.5-84 months).The median time interval required for normalizationof left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) among patients was 1.5 months(interquartile range: 1.5-2.12 months). Compared to controls, patients had a significantly higher median left ventricular myocardial performance index (MPI) at the interventricular septum (0.44 vs. 0.38, p=0.001) and left ventricular lateral wall (0.46 vs. 0.32, p= 0.0001).The median right ventricular MPI of the patients' group was significantly higher when compared to the control group (0.34 vs. 0.26, p=0.0001). The median right atrial (RA) reservoir functionin patients was significantly reduced compared to controls (30% vs. 36.63%, p=0.007)

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