Assessment of speckle tracking strain predictive value for myocardial fibrosis in subjects with Chagas disease

• Published in: International journal of cardiology. Heart & vasculature 2015-09, Vol.8 (C), p.75-80
• Main Authors: Macedo, Carolina Thé, Larocca, Ticiana Ferreira, Noya-Rabelo, Márcia, Correia, Luís Claudio Lemos, Moreira, Moisés Imbassahy Guimarães, Caldas, Alessandra Carvalho, Torreão, Jorge Andion, de Freitas Souza, Bruno Solano, dos Santos, Ricardo Ribeiro, Soares, Milena Botelho Pereira
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chagas disease; Longitudinal global strain; Speckle tracking
• ISSN: 2352-9067; 2352-9067
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcha.2015.05.007

One of the most challenging issues of chronic Chagas disease is to provide earlier detection of heart involvement. Two-dimensional speckle tracking (2-D ST) echocardiography, a new imaging modality with useful applications in several cardiac diseases, has been validated for subjects with myocardial infarction against cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR). Here we hypothesize that the longitudinal global strain (LGS) has an incremental value to ejection fraction for predicting myocardial fibrosis in subjects with Chagas disease. This observational study comprised 58 subjects with Chagas disease, confirmed by two positive serologic tests. All subjects underwent conventional Doppler echocardiogram plus speckle tracking strain, and cardiac magnetic resonance. The ROC curve analysis revealed that both LGS (area under the curve: 0.78, p=0.001) and ejection fraction (area under the curve: 0.82, p