Strain Echocardiography Is a Promising Tool for the Prognostic Assessment of Sarcoidosis.

Sarcoidosis is a systemic chronic granulomatous disease with significant morbidity and mortality. Although basic transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is not recommended for the assessment of sarcoidosis, speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) has emerged as more sensitive for the early detection of cardiac sarcoidosis and its outcome. The aim of the study was to assess the utility of left atrial and left ventricular longitudinal STE for the prediction of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and sarcoidosis relapses. We enrolled 172 consecutive patients with sarcoidosis who underwent TTE and pulmonary function tests (PFTs). All patients were followed for a sarcoidosis relapse and MACE. During a median follow-up of 2217 days, 8 deaths, 23 MACE and 36 sarcoidosis relapses were observed. LV global longitudinal strain (GLS) was significantly lower in patients with MACE (p = 0.025). LV-GLS < 17.13% (absolute value) was identified as a fair predictor of MACE. Concerning the sarcoidosis control, TTE revealed a reduction of the LV ejection fraction (p = 0.0432), tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (p = 0.0272) and global peak atrial longitudinal strain (PALS, p = 0.0012) in patients with relapses. PALS < 28.5% was the best predictor of a sarcoidosis relapse. Our results highlight a potential role of LV-GLS and PALS as prognostic markers in sarcoidosis, supporting the use of STE in the clinical management of these patients.

Survival in acute heart failure in intensive cardiac care unit: a prospective study.

The aim of this study is to identify the best predictors of mortality among clinical, biochemical and advanced echocardiographic parameters in acute heart failure (AHF) patients admitted to coronary care unit (CCU). AHF is a clinical condition characterized by high mortality and morbidity. Several studies have investigated the potential prognostic factors that could help the risk assessment of cardiovascular events in HF patients, but at the moment it has not been found a complete prognostic score (including clinical, laboratory and echocardiographic parameters), univocally used for AHF patients. Patients (n = 118) admitted to CCU due to AHF de novo or to an exacerbation of chronic heart failure were enrolled. For each patient, clinical and biochemical parameters were reported as well as the echocardiographic data, including speckle tracking echocardiography analysis. These indexes were then related to intra- and extrahospital mortality. At the end of the follow-up period, the study population was divided into two groups, defined as 'survivors' and 'non-survivors'. From statistical analysis, C-reactive protein (CRP) (AUC = 0.75), haemoglobin (AUC = 0.71), creatinine clearance (AUC = 0.74), left atrial strain (AUC = 0.73) and freewall right ventricular strain (AUC = 0.76) showed the strongest association with shortterm mortality and they represented the items of the proposed risk score, whose cut-off of 3 points is able to discriminate patients at higher risk of mortality. AHF represents one of the major challenges in CCU. The use of a combined biochemical and advanced echocardiographic score, assessed at admission, could help to better predict mortality risk, in addition to commonly used indexes.

Left atrial strain as a pre-operative prognostic marker for patients with severe mitral regurgitation.

BACKGROUND: In patients with severe mitral regurgitation (MR), additional echocardiographic indices could be helpful to optimize surgical timing before irreversible left heart myocardial dysfunction has occurred. We investigated the correlation of left atrial (LA) strain by speckle tracking echocardiography with prognosis after mitral surgery for severe MR, and its association with LA fibrosis. METHOD: 71 patients with primary severe MR undergoing pre-operative echocardiographic assessment were initially enrolled. Exclusion criteria were: other valvular disease>moderate, history of coronary artery disease, heart failure (HF), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, left bundle branch block, previous pacemaker implantation, heart transplantation, poor acoustic window. The primary endpoint was the occurrence of composite events (HF and mortality); the secondary endpoint was post-operative functional capacity (NYHA and Borg CR10 class). LA fibrosis was assessed by atrial biopsy specimens in a subset of patients. RESULTS: Of 65 eligible patients, the primary endpoint occurred in 30 patients (medium follow-up: 3.7 ± 1 years for event-group, 6.8 ± 1 years for non-event group). After Kaplan-Meier analysis, peak atrial longitudinal strain (PALS) provided good risk stratification (5-year event-free survival:90 ± 5% for PALS≥21% vs 30 ± 9% for PALS<21%, p < 0.0001); it was an independent and incremental predictor of outcome in four multivariate Cox adjusted models. There was also an association between PALS and the secondary endpoint (NYHA: r2 = 0.11, p = 0.04; Borg CR10: r2 = 0.10, p = 0.02) and an inverse correlation between PALS<21% and LA fibrosis (r2 0.80, fibrosis: 76.6 ± 20.7% vs 31.9 ± 20.8%;p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Global PALS emerged as a reliable predictor of outcome and functional capacity for severe primary MR, and as a marker of LA fibrosis.