Pressure-volume loop-derived cardiac indices during dobutamine stress: a step towards understanding limitations in cardiac output in children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome

Background: Children with a single systemic right ventricle, such as in hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), frequently experience reduced exercise capacity. Elucidating the causes could help with optimising treatment strategies.

Methods: Prospective data from 10 consecutive symptomatic patients with HLHS undergoing clinical cardiac magnetic resonance with catheterisation (XMR) were analysed. Mean age 8.6years (range 3.5-11.6years), mean time since Fontan completion 5.5years. MR-compatible catheters were placed in the systemic right ventricle and branch pulmonary arteries to record pressures at rest, with dobutamine infusion at 10mcg/kg/min and at 20mcg/kg/min. Cine short-axis stacks of the ventricle were performed at each condition and used to construct pressure-volume loops.

Results: Compared to rest, cardiac index increased with low-dose dobutamine (p<0.01) with no further rise at peak stress despite a further, albeit, blunted rise in heart rate (p=0.002). A fall in stroke volume occurred (p=0.014) despite good contractility (74% increase, p=0.045) and a well-coupled ventriculo-arterial ratio. End-diastolic pressure and early active relaxation, markers of diastolic function, were normal at rest. However, preload fell at peak stress (p<0.008) while pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) was low throughout. This group of HLHS patients demonstrated a fall in SV at peak stress, coinciding with a fall in preload.

Conclusions: Markers of systolic and diastolic function remained normal. Failure to adequately fill the ventricle implies a ceiling of maximal flow through the Fontan circuit despite low PVR.