Arq. Bras. Cardiol. 2019; 113(4): 685-686

Are Myocardium Deformation Indices Influenced by Cardiac Load, Age or Body Mass Index?

Vera Maria Cury Salemi , Marcelo Dantas Tavares de Melo

DOI: 10.5935/abc.20190211

This Short Editorial is referred by the Research article "Strain Analysis of Left Ventricular Function in the Association of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Systemic Arterial Hypertension".

The typical findings of myocardium deformation indices (MDI) in many cardiac diseases, the low cost of the echocardiographic exam, the large availability, the vast implementation of this tool for clinical practice and the prognostic value has allowed the detection of earlier myocardium dysfunction than the traditional measurement of left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction. Moreover, there are typical MDI patterns in different forms of hypertrophy: decreased values in septum MDI in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) or where hypertrophy is more accentuated, or a segmental decrease in mutation carriers in a pre-clinical phase of disease, before development of hypertrophy; apical sparing in amyloidosis; striped pattern of myocardium deformation in glycogen storage cardiomyopathy (PRKAG2); and decrease in subepicardial longitudinal strain in Anderson-Fabry disease. In hypertension with concentric and eccentric hypertrophy, the MDI patterns are related to different geometric patterns, but they are frequently preserved in athletes.

The question whether MDI would be reliable in different machines and vendors was demonstrated that the accuracy of these indices were better than conventional echocardiography measurements and they are reliable for daily echocardiographic practice.

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