Aims: The patho-physiology of apical ballooning syndrome (ABS) has not been clearly defined. The aim of this study was to determine whether patients with a history of ABS are more likely to develop left ventricular (LV) mid-cavity or outflow tract obstruction, or have a greater regional LV contractile response to an adrenergic stimulus compared with normal controls.
Methods and results: Twenty patients who had recovered from ABS and 15 age-and sex-matched controls had dobutamine stress echocardiography with incremental doses up to 20 µg/kg/min. On average ABS subjects had slightly greater basal LV interventricular septal (1.1 ± 0.24 cm vs. 0.93 ± 0.12, P = 0.03) and posterior wall (1.04 ± 0.16 vs. 0.91 ± 0.11 cm, P = 0.02) diameters compared with controls but LV end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes and LV ejection fraction were similar both at rest and after dobutamine. Regional and global LV contractility, measured with the strain rate and tissue velocity imaging were also similar during the dobutamine infusion up to 10 µg/kg/min in ABS and controls. Mid-LV or LV outflow tract obstruction was not present at rest in any subjects, but was common during peak dobutamine infusion both in the ABS (45%) and controls (53%, P = 0.62).
Conclusions: Dynamic LV obstruction with dobutamine is common in those with and without prior ABS. However, this study did not identify a greater individual predisposition to LV obstruction, or a different regional or global LV contractile response to dobutamine in patients with a history of ABS compared with control subjects.