Does direct-current electrical cardioversion normalize the relation between ejection fraction and mitral annulus motion in patients with atrial fibrillation?
The relation between ejection fraction and mitral annulus motion normalizes 4-8 weeks after successful DC electrical cardioversion for atrial fibrillation, allowing standard conversion factors to be used.
Mitral annulus motion (MAM) and the relation between left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) and MAM has been shown to differ between patients with sinus rhythm and patients with atrial fibrillation. However, it has not been investigated how the relation between EF and MAM changes on direct-current (DC) electrical cardioversion to sinus rhythm. Therefore, 31 consecutive patients on the waiting list for DC electrical cardioversion were examined by echocardiography before DC electrical cardioversion, and those who maintained sinus rhythm (13 patients) were examined again 4-8 weeks after cardioversion. The conversion factor (CF) (ratio EF/MAM) decreased from 8.4 +/- 1.7 before to 5.8 +/- 0.8 SD after cardioversion (P<0.001). The EF increased slightly (P<0.05) but the MAM had a much greater increase (P<0.001), resulting in the decrease in CF. There was no significant difference in CF between patients after cardioversion and age- and gender-matched control patients with sinus rhythm, indicating that CF is normalized or almost normalized 4-8 weeks after cardioversion. This indicates that when MAM is used for investigation of the left ventricular function, and the function is expressed as EF, the same CF as in other patients with sinus rhythm can be used 4-8 weeks after DC electrical cardioversion.
Emilsson et al. (Mon,) studied this question.