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).