Does moderate or severe diastolic dysfunction predict mortality in patients with normal ejection fraction presenting for outpatient echocardiography?
Moderate or severe, but not mild, diastolic dysfunction is an independent predictor of mortality in outpatients with normal systolic function.
In this single-center study of patients with normal ejection fraction who presented for outpatient echocardiography, the presence of moderate or severe DD was an independent predictor of mortality. Mild DD, although prevalent, did not affect survival rate.
Halley et al. (Mon,) studied this question.