Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Background: Myocardial work (MW) is a new echocardiography-based diagnostic tool, which allows to quantify left ventricular performance based on pressure-strain loops and has been validated against invasively derived pressure-volume measurements. The purpose of the present study was to analyze whether systemic arterial hypertension is associated with abnormal left ventricular (LV) function assessed by myocardial work and how these changes are related to left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and aortic strain.
Methods: We examined 86 hypertensive (mean age, 66±14 years, 51% male) and 86 sex- and age-matched healthy controls (mean age, 64±15 years, 53% male). Hypertensive patients were divided into two groups: patients without LVH (group-A) and patients with LVH (group-B, LVMI>115g/m2 men, LVMI>95g/m2 women). All of them had preserved LV ejection fraction. Global LV longitudinal strain (GLS) was calculated by speckle tracking echocardiography. The following indices of MW were assessed: global work index (GWI), global constructive work (GCW), global wasted work (GWW), and global work efficiency (GWE). Corrected circumferential aortic strain (Ao-S) was calculated in the ascending aorta by two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography as global aortic strain /pulse pressure. Data analysis was performed offline (GE EchoPAC).
Results: GWI and GCW were increased in group-A compared to controls (p<0.05) and decreased in group-B (p=0.04). GWW was increased in group-A(p=0.02) and group-B(p<0.001). GWE was decreased in group-A(p<0.01) and group-B(p<0.005). There was a positive correlation between GWE and Ao-S(r=0.51,p=0.03). GWE was independently associated with GLS(β=0.26,p=0.034), LV mass(β=0.31,p=0.02) and Ao-S(β=0.37,p=0.01) in the whole hypertensive population. At the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, optimal cutoff values of GWI, GLS, Ao-S, GWE and (GWE+Ao-S) discriminating LV hypertrophy were 0.7329, 0.7613, 0.8011, 0.8442 and 0.8986, respectively.
Conclusions: Decreased GWE in systemic hypertension was related to aortic strain and occurred even in the absence of LV hypertrophy. Additional assessment of aortic strain improved the ability of myocardial work variables to differentiate patients with LVH, patients without LVH, and control subjects.