Prognostic Significance of Biventricular and Biatrial Strain in Dilated Cardiomyopathy: Strain Analysis Derived from Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance

Shengliang Liu^1,†, Yunling Li^1,†, Jianxiu Lian², Xueying Wang¹, Ye Li¹, Di Wang³, Yanming Zhao¹, Zhiyuan Wu⁴, Xia Gu¹, Bing Xu¹, Jinjin Cui³, Xuedong Wang³, Jiayue Ren³, Qiang Li³, Guokun Wang^1,*, Bo Yu^3,*

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¹ Cardiovascular Imaging Center, Department of Cardiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, 150086 Harbin, Heilongjiang, China

² Department of Biomedical Engineering, Beihang University, 100191 Beijing, China

³ Department of Cardiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University; The Key Laboratory of Myocardial Ischemia, Chinese Ministry of Education,150086 Harbin, Heilongjiang, China

⁴ Department of Vascular Surgery, Beijing Hospital, National Center of Gerontology; Institute of Geriatric Medicine, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, 100730 Beijing, China

^*Correspondence: wangguokun1986@163.com (Guokun Wang); yubodr@163.com (Bo Yu)
^†These authors contributed equally.

Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2023, 24(12), 347; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm2412347

Submitted: 25 March 2023 | Revised: 20 June 2023 | Accepted: 28 June 2023 | Published: 12 December 2023

This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.

Abstract

Background: Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) has a poor prognosis and high mortality. The relationship between the deformation capacity of the biatrial and biventricular regions in patients with DCM remains unclear. Methods: This retrospective study used cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) to assess patient enrollment between September 2020 to May 2022. Feature tracking (FT) was used to evaluate biventricular global radial strain (GRS), global circumferential strain (GCS) and global longitudinal strain (GLS). Fast long-axis method was used to evaluate biatrial GLS by analyzing balanced steady-state free precession cine images. The median follow-up period was 362 days (interquartile range: 234 to 500 days). DCM patients were divided into two groups based on the occurrence or non-occurrence of major adverse cardiac event (MACE). The primary endpoint was defined as all-cause death, heart transplantation, and adverse ventricular arrhythmia. The secondary end point included hospitalizations due to heart failure. Cox regression analysis was utilized for variables and Kaplan-Meier survival was utilized for clinical outcomes. Results: There were 124 DCM patients (52.82 $\pm{}$ 12.59 years, 67.74% male) and 53 healthy volunteers (53.17 $\pm{}$ 14.67 years, 52.83% male) recruited in this study. Biventricular GRS, GCS, GLS, and biatrial GLS were significantly impaired in the DCM group compared with the healthy group. In receiver-operating characteristic curve, biatrial GLS and biventricular GRS, GCS, and GLS showed significant prognostic value in predicting MACEs (all p $<$ 0.05). In multivariate Cox regression analysis, left ventricular (LV) GLS offered a significant and independent prognostic value surpassing other CMR parameters in predicting MACE. In Kaplan-Meier analysis, patients with a LV GLS $>$ –4.81% had a significantly higher rate of MACE (Log-rank p $<$ 0.001). Conclusions: LV GLS was independently associated with MACEs in DCM patients by using FT and fast long-axis method derived from CMR. Comprehensive CMR examination including biatrial and biventricular functions should be systematically performed, to understand disease characteristics, as well as improve the risk stratification and therapeutic management for patients with DCM.