Ejection fraction

[beacher22]

In sept 2012 my ef was 35 to 40perct on echo. Started meds in July, had muga scan done in dec 2012 and ef was 54perct.  Just had another echo done dec 2013 and ef was 45perct. I have read that a muga scan is more accurate than an echo.  Is this correct

[p1954]

It's my understanding that an echo is plus or minus 5%.   So there may no real difference between two readings, say one being 45% and the other being 50%.   There is also consistency between the machines and the technicians to consider.  On the other hand, if you get multiple readings over time a trend might become apparent...

[ed34]

Oh I forgot about wall stiffness. If a heart becomes low in EF, the body starts to fight back by releasing different chemicals into the blood, such as epinephrine to speed up the Heart. Not only speed it up, but make the ventricles contract more forcefully. There are two ways for a ventricle to increase output, be faster, be more aggressive. In a weak heart this causes thickening and stiffness of the heart muscle over time and makes the EF even lower. So again, medications can be used to block those chemicals. One of the best on the market for such things is a beta blocker called Bisoprolol.

[ed34]

In many cases yes. If you think about it, the heart is just a muscle and the harder the work it must do when not healthy, the less effective it will be. For example, if blood pressure is high, a heart must work harder to push blood out. So if a damaged or unhealthy heart is low on output in a patient with high blood pressure, lowering this will improve things. Dilating blood vessels, lowering pressure are just two ways to improve things. The easier you make it for blood to be able to get around the vessels, the easier the heart will find it and be more effective.

[Jerry_NJ]

Good to know, I have had only Echo to measure EF, but my EF has always been in the 60% range so it seems there is no need to seek a more accurate answer.

The other interesting thing to me is the "meds" - are there meds that can help increase the EF?  I would be interesting to know some of those details.

[Paderla Anitha, DNB]

Hi, the MUGA scan gives an accurate and reproducible means of measuring and monitoring the ejection fraction of the cardiac ventricles. The MUGA ejection fraction is highly accurate, probably more accurate than that obtained by any other technique like ECHO, so you can rely on this value. Regards.