Dysfunction of the Right Ventricle in Coronary Artery Disease

¹ Cardiovascular Laboratory, Section of Cardiology, Medical Service, Veterans Administration Hospital, Miami, Fla. and the Department of Medicine, University of Miami, School of Medicine

Data have been presented on a group of patients with pure arteriosclerotic heart disease who had evidence of right ventricular dysfunction manifested by an elevation of the right ventricular end-diastolic pressure, abnormal right ventricular compliance, reduction of the cardiac index and increased incidence of myocardial infarction, known to involve the free wall of the right ventricle. The evaluation of coronary artery cineangiograms was not helpful in indentifying patients found hemodynamically to have evidence of right, left or combined ventricular dysfunction. Our data suggest that obstructive coronary artery disease can cause predominant right ventricular dysfunction and that there is a paucity of data relating to the and relaxing states of the right ventricle relating to the entire clinical and hemodynamic spectrum of coronary artery disease.