Cardiovascular magnetic resonance characterization of left ventricular non-compaction provides independent prognostic information in patients with incident heart failure or suspected cardiomyopathy

BACKGROUND: With recent advances in imaging methods, detection of LVNC is increasingly common. Concomitantly, the prognostic importance of LVNC is less clear. METHODS: We followed 42 patients (63% male, age 44 ± 15 years) with incident heart failure or suspected cardiomyopathy, in whom cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) yielded a diagnosis of LVNC, for 27 ± 16 months. RESULTS: LVNC was preferentially distributed among posterolateral segments, with apical predominance. Patients with maximum non-compacted-to-compacted thickness ratio (NC:C) < 3 improved by 0.9 ± 0.7 NYHA Class, compared to 0.3 ± 0.8 for patients with NC:C > 3 (p = 0.001). In 29 patients with baseline LVEF < 0.40, there was an inverse correlation between NC:C ratio, and the change in LVEF during follow-up. Tachyarrhythmias were observed in 42% of patients with LGE, and in 0% of patients without LGE (p = 0.02). In multivariate analysis, arrhythmia incidence was significantly higher in patients with LGE, even when adjusted for LVEF and RVEF. CONCLUSIONS: CMR assessments of myocardial morphology provide important prognostic information for patients with LVNC who present with incident heart failure or suspected cardiomyopathy. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12968-014-0064-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.