Early and Quantitative Assessment of Myocardial Deformation in Essential Hypertension Patients by Using Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Feature Tracking

The aims of the study were to identify subclinical global systolic function abnormalities and evaluate influencing factors associated with left ventricular (LV) strain parameters in hypertensive subjects using cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging feature tracking (CMR-FT). The study enrolled 57 patients with essential hypertension (mean age: 43.04 ± 10.90 years; 35 males) and 26 healthy volunteers (mean age: 38.69 ± 10.44 years; 11 males) who underwent clinical evaluation and CMR examination. Compared with controls, hypertensive patients had significantly impaired myocardial strain values while ejection fraction (EF) did not differ. After multivariate regression analyses adjustment for confounders, the global radial strains (GRS) was independently associated with the mean arterial pressure (MAP) and left ventricular mass index (LVMI) (β = −0.219, p = 0.009 and β = −0.224, p = 0.015, respectively; Adjusted R(2) = 0.4); the global circumferential strains (GCS) was also independently associated with the MAP and LVMI (β = 0.084, p = 0.002 and β = 0.073, p = 0.01, respectively; Adjusted R(2) = 0.439); the global longitudinal strains (GLS) was independently associated with the Age and MAP (β = 0.065, p = 0.021 and β = 0.077, p = 0.009, respectively; Adjusted R(2) = 0.289). Myocardial strain can early detect the myocardial damage and may be an appropriate target for preventive strategies before abnormalities of EF.