Vmax as an Index of Contractile State in Man

The exchange of letters between Dr. I. Mirsky and Drs. H. L. Falsetti et al., which appeared in CIRCULATION (44: 486, 1971), appears to me to miss the major question raised by the many derived indices of myocardial contractility examined by Falsetti et al. (CIRCULATION 43: 467, 1971). This question, in my opinion, is not the extent to which these indices correlate with each other, but, instead, their usefulness in evaluating the state of the myocardium in patients with heart disease. Table 1, compiled with the aid of a PDP-8e computer from table 1 in the paper by Falsetti et al. provides some answers to two important questions regarding these indices: (1) Are these criteria of value in distinguishing between populations categorized as compensated,