End-systolic Pressure-Volume Relation, Ejection Fraction, and Heart Failure: Theoretical Aspect and Clinical Applications

A mathematical formalism describing the nonlinear end-systolic pressure-volume relation (ESPVR) is used to derive new indexes that can be used to assess the performance of the heart left ventricle by using the areas under the ESPVR (units of energy), the ordinates of the ESPVR (units of pressure), or from slopes of the curvilinear ESPVR. New relations between the ejection fraction (EF) and the parameters describing the ESPVR give some insight into the problem of heart failure (HF) with normal or preserved ejection fraction. Relations between percentage occurrence of HF and indexes derived from the ESPVR are also discussed. When ratios of pressures are used, calculation can be done in a noninvasive way with the possibility of interesting applications in routine clinical work. Applications to five groups of clinical data are given and discussed (normal group, aortic stenosis, aortic valvular regurgitation, mitral valvular regurgitation, miscellaneous cardiomyopathies). No one index allows a perfect segregation between all clinical groups, it is shown that appropriate use of two indexes (bivariate analysis) can lead to better separation of different clinical groups.