Assessment of myocardial deformation with CMR: a comparison with ultrasound speckle tracking in a cohort of highly trained endurance athletes

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main source(s): Plan Nacional I.D., Del Programa Estatal de Fomento De La Investigación Científica y Técnica Excelencia, Subprograma Generación Conocimiento, Ministerio Economía Competitividad 2013. Background Myocardial deformation integrated with cardiac dimensions provides a comprehensive assessment the ventricular remodelling patterns induced by cumulative effects intensive exercise. Feature tracking(FT) can measure myocardial from magnetic resonance(CMR) cine sequences; however, its accuracy is still scarcely validated. Purpose Our aim was to compare FT’s and reproducibility speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) in highly trained endurance athletes (EAs). Methods 93 EAs (>12 hours training/week during last 5 years, 52% male, 35 ± 5.1 years) 72 age-matched controls underwent resting CMR transthoracic assess biventricular exercise-induced global longitudinal strain (GLS) CMR-FT STE. Results High training load associated larger bi-ventricular bi-atrial sizes mildly reduced systolic function both ventricles (p < 0,05). Strain values (both STE) proportionally decreased increasing volumes potentially depicting increased volume functional reserve that characterize heart. were lower when assessed as compared STE 0.001), good for LV (bias = 3.94%, LOA= 4.27%) but wider variability RV strains (Figure 2). Conclusions Biventricular FT Both methods comparable measuring not strain. These differences might be justified in-plane spatial temporal resolution, which particularly relevant complex anatomy RV. Figure. Fig 1. Bland-Altman plots; vs