Left ventricular myocardial deformation assessment in asymptomatic patients with recently diagnosed sarcoidosis of the respiratory tract and/or extrapulmonary sarcoidosis

Background Sarcoidosis is a systemic granulomatous disease affecting different organs including the heart. Myocardial strain analysis could potentially detect the early stages of cardiac dysfunction in sarcoidosis patients. The present study aims to assess the use of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) strain analysis using feature tracking (FT) in the detection of early cardiac involvement in asymptomatic patients with sarcoidosis. Methods One hundred and thirteen CMR studies of patients with sarcoidosis of the respiratory tract and/or extrapulmonary sarcoidosis without pre-existing known cardiovascular disease were included in the study and analysed using FT and compared to 22 age and gender-matched controls. Global longitudinal strain (GLS), global circumferential strain (GCS) and global radial strain (GRS) of the left ventricle (LV) were measured. Results The sarcoidosis patients did not significantly differ from the controls in basic demographic data and had normal global and regional systolic LV function-LV ejection fraction (EF) 66 +/- 7% vs 65 +/- 5% in the controls (p = NS). No statistically significant differences were found in all strain parameters between patients and controls: GLS (- 13.9 +/- 3.1 vs. - 14.2 +/- 2.5), GCS (- 23.4 +/- 4.0 vs. - 22.2 +/- 2.9) and GRS (53.4 +/- 13.5 vs. 51.2 +/- 13.6%) (p = NS). Conclusion Patients with sarcoidosis of the respiratory tract and/or extrapulmonary sarcoidosis had normal myocardial deformation measured by CMR-FT derived global strain