The Significance of Ejection Period/Tension Period as a Factor in the Assessment of Cardiac Function and as a Possible Diagnostic Tool for the Uncovering of Silent Coronary Heart Disease

A Study of 111 Cases

¹ American College of Chest Physicians

The quotient of ejection period/tension period has been considered with respect to its significance as a value that summarizes the pre-ejection and ejection components of the ventricular phase of the cardiac cycle.

Recordings of the temporal events of both the tension period and ejection period were obtained in 70 normal individuals and 41 patients with coronary heart disease by the use of simultaneously recorded electrocardiograms, phonocardiograms and the carotid pulse tracings. For each case, a mean was calculated based on ten consecutive cardiac cycles for each of these temporal events. The difference in these values for the two groups is shown.

For the quotient of ejection period/tension period, members of the normal group showed a distribution range of 2.40-3.92, with 94 per cent of the values in the range 2.50-3.49. The individuals with coronary heart disease were dispersed throughout a slightly greater range than the normals, i.e., 1.40-4.76. In addition 46 per cent of these values for abnormal patients were located below the major area of concentration of the normal group. Differences were significant at the P=.06 level.