Assessment of left ventricular function by Doppler echocardiography in Egyptian bilharzial patients with or without pulmonary hypertension.

Forty-eight Egyptian bilharzial patients were selected for this study. Forty males and eight females. Their ages ranged from 12-60 years. All had hepatosplenomegaly with or without cardiopulmonary schistosomiasis. Also a group of ten subjects was chosen as a control group. After full clinical, laboratory and radiological examinations our subjects were subjected to: right cardiac catheterization, M-mode, two-dimensional as well as Doppler echocardiography. We found that the left ventricular geometry was distorted from its circular configuration as a result of right ventricular pressure overload as measured by the eccentricity index in bilharzial pulmonary hypertension. Also there were significant impairment of all Doppler echocardiographic parameters in those patients except time to E-peak (early diastolic flow velocity) and acceleration time of aortic flow (cm/sec2).