A research abstract from the School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, on the relationship between epicardial acceleration signals and left ventricular diastolic function has recently been accepted by ESC Congress 2026 and invited for presentation during the congress. The study was jointly supervised by the Integrated Cardiovascular Function Research Group at the Institute for Surgical Research, University of Oslo, Norway, and the Wearable Intelligent Monitoring Laboratory of Southeast University. Focusing on left ventricular diastolic dysfunction, an important issue in the diagnosis and evaluation of heart failure, this study explored a new method for assessing active left ventricular relaxation based on epicardial acceleration signals.
Left ventricular diastolic dysfunction is a major pathophysiological component of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. The isovolumic relaxation time constantτ is an important parameter for evaluating active left ventricular relaxation, but its measurement usually requires invasive left ventricular pressure recording. To address this issue, the present study proposed an impulse parameter, ILV, derived from triaxial accelerometer signals recorded by a sensor sutured to the left ventricular epicardium. Using τ as the reference parameter, the study evaluated whether ILV could reflect changes in left ventricular diastolic function under different hemodynamic conditions.
The research team performed a secondary analysis of experimental data from 15 open-chest pigs. Left ventricular pressure, electrocardiogram, and triaxial epicardial acceleration signals were recorded simultaneously under baseline conditions and several acute hemodynamic interventions, including esmolol, epinephrine, ischemia, fluid loading, nitroprusside, and dobutamine. τ was calculated from the left ventricular pressure signal, whileILV was extracted from the epicardial acceleration signal. The relationship between these two parameters was further analyzed across different animals and intervention conditions.
The study found that ILV derived from the radial epicardial acceleration signal showed a consistent inverse relationship with τ, indicating its sensitivity to changes in active left ventricular relaxation. Further analysis under different hemodynamic interventions suggested that ILV could track changes in τ and may reflect active relaxation-related changes rather than purely passive load-dependent effects. These findings indicate that ILV may serve as a kinetic surrogate parameter for τ in a porcine experimental model. Compared with the conventional catheter-based calculation of τ from left ventricular pressure, ILV is derived from epicardial mechanical motion signals and provides a mechanically grounded perspective for evaluating left ventricular diastolic function.
This presentation provides an important international academic exchange opportunity for the research team of Southeast University to showcase its work related to heart failure research. The team will continue to carry out further research in this field.
