My Approach to Assess Diastolic Function in the Presence of Atrial Fibrillation?

Introduction

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a prevalent arrhythmia that can occur alone or in combination with other clinical conditions. Its onset interferes both in common diagnostic algorithms and in their respective protocol procedures. In diastolic function assessments by echocardiography, it drastically changes the analysis sequence. This relationship becomes even more complex because diastolic dysfunction is onc cause of non-valvular AF.

A group of conditions called “special populations” or “situations” in diastology also modify study algorithms, especially but not exclusively sinus tachycardia, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, restrictive cardiomyopathy, non-cardiac pulmonary hypertension, mitral stenosis, mitral regurgitation, greater than mild mitral annulus calcification, heart transplantation, and constrictive pericarditis.^–

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