Meune C et al. – Depression of left ventricular (LV) and right ventricular (RV) systolic and LV diastolic function is common in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and is due to primary myocardial involvement. The addition of this simple technique to standard measurements may improve the detection of heart involvement in patients with SSc. Methods
Aim was to assess the prevalence of primary cardiac complications in a large population of SSc pts, using recently developed echocardiographic techniques
100 consecutive pts (mean ± SD age 54 ± 14 yrs; 86 women) presenting with SSc w/o pulmonary arterial hypertension or clinical manifestations of heart failure were studied
All pts underwent standard echocardiography, along with measurements of longitudinal velocities by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI)
These techniques were used to assess LV and RV contractility and LV diastolic function
Results were compared with those in 26 age- and sex-matched healthy controls
Results
Pts with SSc had a wider mean left atrial diameter and impaired relaxation vs controls
A trend was observed toward a smaller LV ejection fraction (EF) in the pts vs controls as well as higher pulmonary artery pressure
LVEF was <55% in 7 pts vs none of the controls
Peak systolic mitral annular velocity as measured by TDI was <7.5 cm/second in 14 pts vs none of the controls
Mitral annulus early diastolic velocity was <10 cm/second in 30 pts vs 2 of the controls
15 pts and none of the controls had reduced peak systolic tricuspid annular velocity
The TDI results correlated with each other, but not with lung abnormalities or other disease characteristics
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