Echocardiographic Assessment of Myocardial Performance Index After Complete Surgical Correction of Tetralogy of Fallot

Background: Cardiac function may change following complete surgical correction of Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) and measures that can assess these changes are either inva- sive or very expensive. Objectives: This study aim was to investigate the use of Doppler echocardiography as a simple, inexpensive and reproducible method for assessment of cardiac function. Methods: In a case-control study 30 children who underwent surgical correction of TOF and visited the children’s clinic in Ali Asghar Hospital in Zahedan between Sep- tember 2005 and March 2007 were compared with 30 healthy age and sex matched children. All participants underwent physical examination, chest radiography and elec- trocardiography (ECG) before echocardiography. Cases who did not have any clear cardiac signs and whose surgical repair had been performed at least 6 months ago en- tered the study. Echocardiography was performed for both groups. Data were analyzed using the SPSS software and suitable statistical tests. Results: Right ventricular myocardial performance index (MPI), mean right ventricu- lar isovolumic relaxation time (IRT) and isovolumic contraction time (ICT) and mean RV PEP/ET were higher in cases than controls (p 0.001, 0.014, 0.001 and 0.0001, respectively). There were no significant differences between mean RV E/A between cases and controls (p=0.999). Mean left ventricular MPI and ICT were higher in cases than controls (p 0.001). Mean left ventricular IRT was not different between the two groups (p=0.501). Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that LV and RV dysfunction ensue complete surgical correction of TOF. Therefore, right and left ventricular performance indexes can serve as valuable parameters in assessing cardiac performance in such patients.