Study design
Three experienced echocardiographers scanned the 356 patients. Two of these echocardiographers blinded to each other’s recordings scanned the subgroup of 50 patients three times independently on the same day. The scans were performed consecutively, though between each scan, the echocardiographer guided and repositioned the patient as would happen in a regular clinical situation. Both echocardiographers separately analysed the diastolic function after recordings of all patients were obtained. Analyses were performed offline. Inter-observer reproducibility was defined as the reproducibility calculated by the separate recordings of the two echocardiographers. Intra-observer reproducibility was defined as the reproducibility calculated by the separate recordings of the same echocardiographer. Measurements for intra-examiner analysis were analysed at least one week apart. In all, patients (n=50) were examined 3 times in total (echocardiographic examinations=150), apart from the remaining pool which were examined once (n=306).