Acute effects of sublingual isosorbide dinitrate on global and regional left ventricular diastolic filling in normal persons.

To study the acute effects of isosorbide dinitrate (ISDN) on global and regional left ventricular (LV) diastolic filling, gated radionuclide ventriculographic studies were conducted in 21 normal persons before and after sublingual administration of ISDN. ISDN treatment caused significant increases in ejection fraction and peak LV ejection rate and it caused a delay in occurrence of peak LV filling, without statistically significant changes in peak LV filling rate globally and regionally. The ratios of peak LV filling rate to peak LV ejection rate decreased significantly both globally and regionally. These alterations induced by ISDN could be interpreted as indicating a failure of improvement of the early diastolic filling despite increased systolic function and heart rate in the global left ventricle and in regions of the left ventricle. Furthermore, ISDN caused early diastolic asynchronous filling. There was a negative correlation between this early diastolic asynchronous filling and the ratio of global peak LV filling to global peak LV ejection rate (r = -0.66, p less than 0.001), indicating that administration of ISDN to normal persons may produce early diastolic asynchronous filling associated with failure of improvement of diastolic filling despite increased systolic function and heart rate.