Assessment of Diastolic Function during the transitional period and infancy using Serial Echocardiography in a tertiary neonatal unit (DiFuSE): a longitudinal prospective observational study protocol

Introduction There are structural and functional modifications that occur to the neonatal heart immediately after birth. While a number of studies recently have assessed cardiac function in the newborn, there is a dearth of data on diastolic function in the neonatal period during transition and into infancy. The objective of this study is to assess diastolic function in a large cohort of infants to provide normative reference values and to assess the influence of predefined maternal and infant characteristics. Methods and analysis This is a single-centre observational study of babies born at 35 weeks of gestation and above, involving echocardiography in the first 2 DOL and longitudinal follow-up of these infants up to 18 months of age. The echocardiographic measurements to assess diastolic function used in this study include conventional echo measures, novel echo measures using tissue Doppler imaging and deformation measures using 2D speckle tracking echocardiography. Ethics and dissemination The protocol was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Cork Teaching Hospitals. The findings from this study will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and during scientific conferences.