Detection of left ventricular dysfunction after acute myocardial infarction: comparison of clinical, echocardiographic, and neurohormonal methods.

75 survivors of a recent acute myocardial infarction (assessed 2 to 8 days post-MI), aged 40 to 88 years, with no history of cardiac failure and without cardiogenic shock at the time of entry.

Diagnostic assessment using echocardiography (quantitative and qualitative visual assessment), clinical evaluation (subjective assessment and three clinical score methods), and measurement of plasma concentrations of cardiac natriuretic peptide hormones (ANP and BNP).

Cross sectional echocardiographic algorithm for LVEF (used as the reference standard).

Sensitivities and specificities of the various methods for detecting left ventricular dysfunction (LVEF ≤ 40%).surrogate