Measured ventricular pressure provides an indication of the contractility or relaxation of the ventricles of a heart. In this way, the derivative of pressure over time (dP/dt) provides a biphasic signal that can be used to evaluate acute directional changes of contractility. Statistical measures of dP/dt, such as the mean, maximum, minimum, time to dP/dt maximum or minimum are often extracted and analyzed.
dP/dt Maximum (peak dP/dt) is one of the oldest measures of left ventricular global contractility and is a good index of ventricular performance that is not influenced by afterload, wall motion abnormalities, or the variations in ventricular anatomy and morphology.
Time to dP/dt Maximum is a useful index for evaluating and comparing contractility between multiple subjects.
