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Left and right ventricular long-axis function and prognosis

Correspondence to:
Professor J E Sanderson, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, The Medical School, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK; j.e.sanderson@bham.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

It only takes a cursory look at a beating heart to realise that the heart contracts with a twisting motion. This has been commented on over several centuries.¹ This twisting motion pulls the mitral and tricuspid valve down towards the apex in systole and involves the coordinated action of longitudinal, circumferential and radial orientated fibres.^{2 3} Immediately after aortic valve closure as the myocytes begin to relax untwisting starts using the energy stored during systole within ventricular and atrial myocytes and the interstitium. This energy creates the negative pressure gradient that produces ventricular suction that is a vital process in the normal heart as it allows rapid filling at low pressures.^{4 5} After the left ventricular (LV) pressure has fallen the atrioventricular (AV) plane springs back to its equilibrium position moving around the column of blood passing through the mitral valve thus aiding filling of the ventricle. By this simple mechanism blood . . . [Full text of this article]

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