Effects of Hypertrophic and Dilated Cardiac Geometric Remodeling on Ejection Fraction

Background: Both heart failure (HF) with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) can present a wide variety of cardiac morphologies consequent to cardiac remodeling. We sought to study if geometric changes to the heart during such remodeling will adversely affect the ejection fraction (EF) parameter’s ability to serve as an indicator of heart function, and to identify the mechanism for it. Methods and Results: A numerical model that simulated the conversion of myocardial strain to stroke volume was developed from two porcine animal models of heart failure. Hypertrophic wall thickening was found to elevate EF, while left ventricle (LV) dilation was found to depress EF when myocardial strain was kept constant, causing EF to inaccurately represent the overall strain function. This was caused by EF being calculated using the endocardial boundary rather than the mid-wall layer. Radial displacement of the endocardial boundary resulted in endocardial strain deviating from the overall LV strain, and this deviation varied with LV geometric changes. This suggested that using the epi- or endo-boundaries to calculate functional parameters was not effective, and explained why EF could be adversely affected by geometric changes. Further, when EF was modified by calculating it at the mid-wall layer instead of at the endocardium, this shortcoming was resolved, and the mid-wall EF could differentiate between healthy and HFpEF subjects in our animal models, while the traditional EF could not. Conclusion: We presented the mechanism to explain why EF can no longer effectively indicate cardiac function during cardiac geometric changes relevant to HF remodeling, losing the ability to distinguish between hypertrophic diseased hearts from healthy hearts. Measuring EF at the mid-wall location rather than endocardium can avoid the shortcoming and better represent the cardiac strain function.