Clinical Utility of Doppler Echocardiography and Tissue Doppler Imaging in the Estimation of Left Ventricular Filling Pressures

The combination of tissue Doppler imaging of the mitral annulus and mitral inflow velocity curves provides better estimates of LV filling pressures than other methods (pulmonary vein, preload reduction). However, accurate prediction of filling pressures for an individual patient requires a stepwise approach incorporating all available data.