Echocardiography in patients with suspected cor pulmonale.

Echocardiography was used to evaluate left ventricular function in 43 consecutive patients with suspected cor pulmonale who clinically had no other heart disease or hypertension. Adequate echocardiographic evidence was obtained by either standard left parasternal position or subxiphoid position in 40 patients (93%). Echocardiographic evidence of either dilatation of the left ventricular cavity or thickening of the right ventricular free wall was present in 37 patients (93%). Small left ventricular end-diastolic cavities suggested that many of these patients had functional left ventricle volume depletion. Echocardiographic evidence of left ventricular dysfunction was present in only three patients (8%).