Transthoracic Doppler echocardiographic measurement of left atrial appendage blood flow velocity: comparison with transoesophageal measurement

Abstract

The left atrial appendage flow velocities could be sufficiently recorded and assessed by transthoracic echocardiography in 84 Japanese unselected consecutive patients with sinus rhythm or atrial fibrillation.

Characterizing left atrial appendage functions in sinus rhythm and atrial fibrillation using computational models

“…However, the a-wave from proper atrial contraction is absent. Multiple waves are present instead resulted from passive outward and inward flow waves, similar to the results reported in Bollmann et al (2001) and Fukuda et al (2003). Without the second emptying wave, the blood in the atrial appendage cannot be emptied properly, thus may lead to blood stasis in the appendage.…”

“…The predilection for thrombus formation in the left atrial appendage is likely a result from blood flow stagnation within the appendage and low peak emptying left atrial appendage flow velocity (Fukuda et al, 2003;Kamp et al, 1999;Pozzoli et al, 1991;Tabata et al, 1997). The relative risk of stroke is 2.6 times greater in patients with left atrial appendage flow velocities o20 cm/s than in those with higher left atrial appendage velocities (The Stroke Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation Investigators Committee on Echocardiography 1998).…”

Contemporary echocardiographic assessment of atrial appendages in non-valvular atrial fibrillation

“…Second tissue harmonic mode allows better visualisation of LAA, providing planimetric assessment of LAA area and fractional area change almost in all patients, as well as pulsed wave Doppler assessment of flow velocity (Fig. 4) [6,18,19,51,52]. TTE parameters of LAA contractility closely correlated with those measured by TEE.…”

Clinical significance of anterior mitral leaflet fibrillation in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation: comparison with blood flow and wall motion of the left atrial appendage

“…Therefore, it is extremely important to record the LAA flow velocity in AF patients. Recent advancement in echocardiography, i.e., tissue harmonic imaging, enables us to visualize the LAA structure more clearly than fundamental imaging and to measure the LAA flow velocity to some extent by TTE [8,16,17]. However, the rate of detecting the LAA flow velocity by TTE is not necessarily a satisfactory value in clinical practice.…”

“…The assessment of thromboembolic risk by the measurement of LAA flow velocities in AF has become accepted [3][4][5][6][7]. We had previously reported that the LAA flow velocity measured by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) showed a strong correlation with that by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) [8]. However, it is sometimes difficult to measure the LAA flow velocity by TTE.…”