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Heart Disease (Expert Forum)
Ejection Fraction
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Doctor's Answer
by CCF-M.D.-RCJ, Sep 12, 2002 12:00AM
RbrtS,
Thanks for your question. The answer is "it depends".
Patients with certain types of heart failure, might indeed have a small decriment in their EF with a higher blood pressure. This would be uncommon in most patients, however.
More than likely, if you had a mitral valve replacement surgery in 1998 and have been healthy since, a small decriment in EF is from inter-observer variability. We present EF values here with a caviat of +/- 5%. So, an EF of 55% +/- 5% is somewhere between 50 and 60%. If your next EF is 45% +/- 5%, this really could be the same function that you hade before, as the correct value lies between 40 and 50%.
However, if you experienced a larger decriment in EF, then you need further evaluation.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for your question. The answer is "it depends".
Patients with certain types of heart failure, might indeed have a small decriment in their EF with a higher blood pressure. This would be uncommon in most patients, however.
More than likely, if you had a mitral valve replacement surgery in 1998 and have been healthy since, a small decriment in EF is from inter-observer variability. We present EF values here with a caviat of +/- 5%. So, an EF of 55% +/- 5% is somewhere between 50 and 60%. If your next EF is 45% +/- 5%, this really could be the same function that you hade before, as the correct value lies between 40 and 50%.
However, if you experienced a larger decriment in EF, then you need further evaluation.
Hope that helps.
