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. 2021 Feb 22;11(2):374.
doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11020374.

Deformation Parameters of the Heart in Endurance Athletes and in Patients with Dilated Cardiomyopathy-A Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Study

Łukasz A Małek  1 , Łukasz Mazurkiewicz  2 , Mikołaj Marszałek  3 , Marzena Barczuk-Falęcka  4 , Jenny E Simon  3 , Jacek Grzybowski  2 , Barbara Miłosz-Wieczorek  5 , Marek Postuła  6 , Magdalena Marczak  5
Affiliations

Deformation Parameters of the Heart in Endurance Athletes and in Patients with Dilated Cardiomyopathy-A Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Study

Łukasz A Małek et al. Diagnostics (Basel). .

Abstract

A better understanding of the left ventricle (LV) and right ventricle (RV) functioning would help with the differentiation between athlete's heart and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). We aimed to analyse deformation parameters in endurance athletes relative to patients with DCM using cardiac magnetic resonance feature tracking (CMR-FT). The study included males of a similar age: 22 ultramarathon runners, 22 patients with DCM and 21 sedentary healthy controls (41 ± 9 years). The analysed parameters were peak LV global longitudinal, circumferential and radial strains (GLS, GCS and GRS, respectively); peak LV torsion; peak RV GLS. The peak LV GLS was similar in controls and athletes, but lower in DCM (p < 0.0001). Peak LV GCS and GRS decreased from controls to DCM (both p < 0.0001). The best value for differentiation between DCM and other groups was found for the LV ejection fraction (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.990, p = 0.0001, with 90.9% sensitivity and 100% specificity for ≤53%) and the peak LV GRS diastolic rate (AUC = 0.987, p = 0.0001, with 100% sensitivity and 88.4% specificity for >-1.27 s-1). The peak LV GRS diastolic rate was the only independent predictor of DCM (p = 0.003). Distinctive deformation patterns that were typical for each of the analysed groups existed and can help to differentiate between athlete's heart, a nonathletic heart and a dilated cardiomyopathy.

Keywords: athlete’s heart; cardiac magnetic resonance; dilated cardiomyopathy; feature tracking.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Graphical presentation of differences in the baseline CMR parameters between the studied groups. Please see Table 1 for the abbreviations.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Comparison of the left ventricular peak global longitudinal (A), circumferential (B) and radial (C) strains between the studied groups. GCS—global circumferential strain, GLS—global longitudinal strain, GRS—global radial strain, LV—left ventricular.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Comparison of the left ventricular peak global longitudinal (A), circumferential (B) and radial (C) strains between the studied groups. GCS—global circumferential strain, GLS—global longitudinal strain, GRS—global radial strain, LV—left ventricular.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of the left ventricular peak global longitudinal systolic strain rate (A), global circumferential diastolic strain rate (B) and global radial diastolic strain rate (C) between the studied groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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