Echocardiographic Assessment of Cardiac Structure and Function

All patients underwent echocardiographic examination to assess the morphology and performance of the heart. We used a Philips model iE33 xMATRIX equipped with the S5-1 transducer. We evaluated the IVS thickness as well as the posterior wall thickness at end-diastole (normal range for male 0.6–1 cm and for female 0.6–0.9 cm) and the end-diastolic left ventricular (LV) dimension in M-mode and in parasternal long axis (normal range 42–58.4 mm for male and 37.8–52.2 mm for female). The following parameters were assessed: LV mass index and the relative wall thickness, the presence of concentric or eccentric hypertrophy and the presence of diastolic dysfunction. In addition, we evaluated the end-systolic and diastolic volume (63–150 mL and 21–61 mL for males, 46–106 mL and 14–42 mL for females), using Simpson’s biplane method to estimate the ejection fraction (normal range 52–72% for male and 54–74% for female) [18 (link)].