Longitudinal epsilon and SR decrease with increasing LV dimensions in spite of an unaltered contractility. These results show and confirm that heart size influences epsilon and SR, which are highly load-dependent parameters.

768S troke and myocardial infarction (MI) remain common diseases with massive consequences for patients and healthcare systems.1,2 Improved risk stratification is crucial to optimize patient care and requires development of more sensitive tools to identify high-risk patients. Because blood pressure (BP) in the brachial artery differs from the BP in the aorta, to which the heart and brain are exposed, cardiovascular risk assessment based on aortic BP could potentially be superior to assessment based on office BP measured at the level of the brachial artery. 3 However, the prognostic value of aortic BP remains unresolved, as aortic BP estimated noninvasively has been found to predict cardiovascular events in some, [4][5][6][7] but not all, 8,9 studies. The gold-standard method for assessing aortic BP is by invasive measurements. Only 2 studies of limited size and duration have assessed the association between invasively measured aortic BP and cardiovascular risk yielding conflicting results. 10,11 Although patients with diabetes mellitus are at high risk of cardiovascular events, 12 no previous studies have Abstract-Aortic systolic blood pressure (BP) represents the hemodynamic cardiac and cerebral burden more directly than office systolic BP. Whether invasively measured aortic systolic BP confers additional prognostic value beyond office BP remains debated. In this study, office systolic BP and invasively measured aortic systolic BP were recorded in 21 908 patients (mean age: 63 years; 58% men; 14% with diabetes mellitus) with stable angina pectoris undergoing elective coronary angiography during January 2001 to December 2012. Multivariate Cox models were used to assess the association with incident myocardial infarction, stroke, and death. Discrimination and reclassification were assessed using Harrell's C and the Continuous Net Reclassification Index. Data were analyzed with and without stratification by diabetes mellitus status. During a median follow-up period of 3.7 years (range: 0. MethodsThis study was conducted using medical databases in Denmark. Denmark has free, universal tax-supported health care with unrestrained access to general practitioners and hospitals. Accurate linkage of all medical registries is possible through the unique central personal registry number. 13 In this study, patient data in The Western Denmark Heart Registry covering 3 million inhabitants 14 was linked to outcome data in The Danish National Registry of Patients 15 and The Danish Civil Registration System. 13The Western Denmark Heart Registry collects patient and procedure data from all cardiac intervention centers in Western Denmark.14 The registry was used to identify all elective CAG procedures performed between January 1, 2001, and December 31, 2012. For the present analysis, we considered patients without previous MI, stroke, heart failure, or valvular disease referred for CAG with suspicion of stable angina pectoris. The first CAG during the inclusion period was defined as the index CAG.Office BP and invasively measur...

This survey indicates that 12% of patients with severe acute heart failure are potential candidates for VAD-treatment. Extending these figures to a national level, indicate that approximately 70 patients per year could be candidates for short-term VAD-treatment in Norway.

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