Quantitative echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular function in critically ill obstetric patients: A comparative study

OBJECTIVE: Our purpose was to compare different echocardiographic methods to quantitate maternal ventricular function. STUDY DESIGN: Eleven critically ill obstetric patients requiring invasive monitoring and M-mode and two-dimensional Doppler echocardiographic studies were retrospectively studied. Ventricular volumes and ejection fraction derived from multiple methods were computed and compared with analysis of variance and Newman-Keuls tests. RESULTS: Two M-mode studies could not be analyzed. M-mode and two-dimensional estimates of stroke volume were similar to the previously validated Doppler stroke volume values of these 11 patients. End-diastolic volume estimates were similar. There was no difference in ejection fraction for the five different two-dimensional Doppler methods used (66%, 66%, 67%, 63%, and 63%). CONCLUSION: Left ventricular function is reliably calculated in pregnant women by a number of different echocardiographic techniques. The ability to combine echocardiographic techniques is helpful when any single method does not provide all of the information required.