WEBINAR: A Noninvasive Alternative to +dP/dtmax: Peak Aortic Blood Acceleration

Invasive measurement of left ventricular pressure is considered the gold standard for evaluating cardiac contractility and relaxation in preclinical research.  However, studying disease progression in the same subject over time is not possible, considering the acute and terminal nature of the protocol.  Fortunately, noninvasive imaging options do exist for measuring parameters such as ejection fraction, cardiac output, fractional shortening and cardiac dimensions, however the inherent variability of data from these systems does not provide enough confidence when running serial studies. During this webinar, sponsored by Indus Instruments, Dr. Anilkumar Reddy of the Baylor College of Medicine shows how peak acceleration of blood flow velocity in the ascending aorta can be used as a surrogate, noninvasive measurement to evaluate cardiac contractility. Importantly, this technique enables serial measurements in the same animal, leading to reduced animal-to-animal variability, fewer subjects and shorter data collection times. Specifically, Dr. Reddy presents preliminary findings from his validation studies in mice, where peak aortic acceleration and peak +dP/dt were compared. He highlights the utility of the Doppler method showing how measurements of mitral inflow and myocardial perfusion capacity through coronary flow reserve can be used to noninvasively assess diastolic function. Furthermore, he presents specific examples of noninvasive cardiac measurements and discuss how they scale in translational research from mice to mammals.