Ventricular Assessment by Echocardiography in Children with Bronchial Asthma

Abstract

Background: Bronchial asthma is a chronic inflammatory condition of the airways characterized by hyperresponsiveness of the airways arising from a combination of genetic and environmental factors. The aim of this work is to evaluate the effect of bronchial asthma with different grades of severity and medical control on the ventricular function of the heart using echocardiography. Methods: This case-control study was carried out at pulmonology and cardiology units, pediatric department, in Zagazig University hospitals during the period from December 2016 to January 2018. Included 120 age and sex matched children; 60 of them asthmatic and 60 healthy children. All children were assessed clinically, radiologically, and investigated by Electrocardiography (ECG), pulmonary function tests and by conventional and tissue echocardiography. Results: Echocardiographic data of the left ventricle Demonstrated statistically important variations between cases and controls as regard LV systolic function as Ejection Fraction (EF) showed significant decrease in cases when compared to controls. Right ventricle wall thickness by conventional echocardiography was significantly thicker in asthmatics than control with highly significant difference between cases and controls as regard IVRT, IVCT, ET of right ventricle, lateral tricuspid É and É/Á ratio. Also, significant correlations between findings on TDE and pulmonary function tests in asthmatic patients were found Conclusion: TDE can be used for early detection of impairment of cardiac function in asthmatic children at a stage when conventional echocardiographic indices are still normal, diastolic function of right ventricle is more affected by asthma than systolic function detected by TDE.