Left atrial ejection fraction is an indicator of left ventricular diastolic function

Left atrial ejection fraction (LAEF) has been previously shown to accurately distinguish between patients with and without clearly defined left ventricle diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) by ASE/EACVI criteria, but indeterminate cases were excluded. We sought to determine if LAEF could accurately distinguish between normal, indeterminate and LVDD patients. A retrospective cohort of 125 patients who underwent transthoracic echocardiography was studied. Comprehensive echocardiographic study was performed with measurement of validated diastolic parameters. Subjects were assigned LVDF ASE/EACVI categories. ANOVA test was used to compare means between groups and binary logistic regression and ROC curves to assess diagnostic accuracy. Mean LAEF was statistically different between groups (p < 0.001): 56.3% ± 4.5 for normal patients, 50.2% ± 5.5 for indeterminate patients and 44% ± 8.5 for patients with LVDD. LAEF distinguished LVDD from patients without diastolic dysfunction (OR = 0.73, 95% CI 0.63–0.65, p < 0.001) and ROC curve reveals excellent discriminative power (AUC 0.91, 95% CI 0.84–0.97, p < 0.001). LAEF also distinguished indeterminate patients from LVDD (OR = 0.9, 95% CI 0.83–0.95, p < 0.001) and ROC curve revealed good discriminative power (AUC 0.72, 95% CI 0.62–0.82, p < 0.001). LAEF can accurately differentiate between normal, indeterminate and LVDD patients and could be considered as an additional parameter in the study of diastolic function.