Diagnostic value of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging-based left atrial strain analysis for identifying cardiac diseases with overlapping phenotype

Abstract

Background The main objective of this study was to compare diagnostic accuracies of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR)-based left atrial (LA) volumetry and function, including LA strain analysis, for the detection of myocardial impairments in diseases of different etiologies such as hypertensive heart disease, Fabry disease and acute myocarditis. Methods Healthy volunteers (HV, n = 50) and patients with cardiomyopathies (n = 140), including patients with hypertensive heart disease (n = 40), Fabry disease (n = 49), and acute myocarditis (n = 51), underwent CMR at 3 T. Atrial volume and strain analysis based on long-axis cine acquisition was performed using a commercially available post-processing software. Results Patients exhibited impaired LA reservoir (28.60 ± 9.91 % vs. 41.27 ± 7.54 %), conduit (17.35 ± 7.72 % vs. 26.89 ± 5.25 %) and booster strain (11.30 ± 4.52 % vs. 14.61 ± 4.15 %) parameters compared to HV (all p < 0.001). In contrast, the volumetric values showed no significant difference between patients and HV (p > 0.05). Passive and total emptying fractions were significantly lower in patients (p < 0.001), while active emptying fraction did not differ (p > 0.05). Superior diagnostic accuracy for the LA reservoir strain demonstrated improved prognostic performance comparing to LA volumetric and functional parameters (area under the curve [AUC] 0.85 vs. e.g. passive emptying fraction AUC 0.78, p < 0.05). Conclusion LA strain parameters effectively distinguish patients with cardiac diseases presenting overlapping phenotypes from HV and outperform volumetric and traditional functional assessments of the LA.