Electromechanical left ventricular resynchronisation by coronary artery bypass surgery

In patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), the normal electromechanical response to dobutamine stress is deranged: QRS duration lengthens rather than shortens, left ventricular asynchrony develops, post-ejection shortening appears, and total isovolumic time (the time in the cardiac cycle when the ventricle is neither ejecting nor filling) increases rather than falls, all of which blunt the normal rise in cardiac output. We aimed to study the effect of revascularisation on these stress-induced electromechanical abnormalities and their effect on peak cardiac output after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).