Adil Bayramoğlu1, Hakan Taşolar2, Yılmaz Ömür Otlu3. 1. Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ordu University; Ordu-Turkey. 2. Department of Cardiology, Training and Research Hospital; Adıyaman University, Adıyaman-Turkey. hakantasolar@gmail.com. 3. Department of Cardiology, Kars State Hospital; Kars-Turkey.
To the Editor,We thank the authors for their valuable evaluation of our article entitled “Assessment of left atrial volume and mechanical functions using real-time three-dimensional echocardiography (RT3DE) in patients with mitral annular calcification” published in Anatol J Cardiol 2016; 16: 42-7 (1).They showed that the diastolic functions of tissue Doppler imaging can be used in the evaluation of mitral annular calcification (2–3). No artifacts/noise was mentioned in that study, and in our patients, we did not experience any problems when evalua-ting the mitral annulus movements on tissue Doppler.As stated by the author, in the comparison of the two groups with respect to cigarette smoking, a difference was seen originating from the two groups. We also wish to state that 7 subjects in the control group were smokers (p=0.337). This mistake happened due to the spelling errors.In the evaluation of diastolic functions, mitral valve velocities are evaluated proportionally. Just as a difference was seen between the study groups in E/Em or E/A as a marker of impaired diastolic function, that no difference was seen of Am between the two groups was not considered significant (4).The max Left atrial volume index (LAVI) in the MAC patient group was found to be 26.9±6.1 mL/m2, measured with RT3DE3. In the Guidelines for Left Ventricular Dysfunction (5), left atrial (LA) volumes are evaluated using different methods. In a study by Russo et al. (2), the LAVI max mL/m2 value measured with RT3DE was found to be 22.9±5.9 in normal individuals and 22.7±5.3 in those with Grade 1, 25.0±10.9 in those with Grade 2, and 35.3±11.5 in those with Grade 3 diastolic dysfunction. The LAVI max mL/m2 values of our study are compatible with these (3, 4).Patients with suspected or diagnosed coronary artery disease were not included in our study. No diagnostic method was applied toward non-obstructive coronary artery disease. The main and primary objective of the study was to evaluate the diastolic parameters that could explain the reason for impaired left atrial function.
Authors: Cesare Russo; Zhezhen Jin; Shunichi Homma; Tatjana Rundek; Mitchell S V Elkind; Ralph L Sacco; Marco R Di Tullio Journal: Heart Date: 2012-05 Impact factor: 5.994
Authors: Walter J Paulus; Carsten Tschöpe; John E Sanderson; Cesare Rusconi; Frank A Flachskampf; Frank E Rademakers; Paolo Marino; Otto A Smiseth; Gilles De Keulenaer; Adelino F Leite-Moreira; Attila Borbély; István Edes; Martin Louis Handoko; Stephane Heymans; Natalia Pezzali; Burkert Pieske; Kenneth Dickstein; Alan G Fraser; Dirk L Brutsaert Journal: Eur Heart J Date: 2007-04-11 Impact factor: 29.983