Aging alters patterns of regional nonuniformity in LV strain relaxation: a 3-D MR tissue tagging study

Abstract

Although age-related impairment of diastolic function is well documented, patterns of regional tissue relaxation impairment with age have not been characterized. MRI tissue tagging with a regional three-dimensional (3-D) analysis was performed in 15 younger (age 19-26 yr) and 16 older (age 60-74 yr) normal, healthy volunteers. The peak rate of relaxation of circumferential strain (RC) was decreased in the older group (on average, 105 +/- 28 vs. 163 +/- 18 %/s for older vs. younger, mean +/- SD, P < 0.001) to a greater extent in the lateral wall than in the septum (P = 0.016) and to a greater extent in the apex than in the base (P < 0.001). Peak rate of relaxation of longitudinal strain (RL) was also reduced with age (94 +/- 27 vs. 155 +/- 18 %/s, P < 0.001) to a greater extent in the apex than in the base (P < 0.001). Both RC and RL were greater in the apex than in the base only in the younger subjects (P < 0.001 for each). Peak rate of torsion reversal (RT) was reduced with age (74 +/- 16 vs. 91 +/- 15 degrees/s, P = 0.006) to a greater extent in the base than in the apex (P = 0.035). An increase in regional asynchrony in time to RC and time to RL (P < 0.001 for each), but not time to RT, occurred with age. Thus patterns of regional nonuniformity of myocardial relaxation are altered in a consistent fashion with aging.

Strain‐encoded (SENC) magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate regional heterogeneity of myocardial strain in healthy volunteers: Comparison with conventional tagging

“…No significant difference in peak systolic strain values between the younger and older groups was observed, which is consistent with previously published studies (27). We also could not see any gender-related changes in peak systolic strain values.…”

“…Therefore, the data from this study provide a reference map of the strain distribution with which strain values can be compared. In the present study we found a slight regional nonuniformity in peak systolic strain values obtained with SENC throughout the normal LV, as others have shown using MR tagging (22,27). The anterior apical and anterior midventricular regions showed the highest circumferential peak strain values.…”

“…We also implemented SENC as a new tool for measurement of regional diastolic function and found an age-related difference in relaxation of the LV, which is in line with the previous published literature (27). The rate of early relaxation was decreased in older subjects.…”

Magnetic resonance tissue phase mapping: Analysis of age‐related and pathologically altered left ventricular radial and long‐axis dyssynchrony

“…Accordingly, our data show that aging mainly affected diastolic and long-axis dyssynchrony but not systolic radial dyssynchrony. In line with our findings, over all diastolic parameters of dyssynchrony demonstrated an age-related increase in previous studies (23,26). The finding that radial systolic dyssynchrony was independent from age further underlines the potential of this marker for the diagnosis of disease.…”

Discrepancy between regional left ventricular regional circumferential strain assessed by MR-tagging and by speckle tracking echocardiography

“…If we consider regional Ecc analysis, largely investigated through single modality studies (STE or MR-tagging performed separately), highest lateral absolute Ecc is constantly reported in MR-based literature [5,[16][17][18][19][20][21] and highest septal absolute Ecc is constantly reported in the STE based literature [3,4,10,11,22,23] . These results, are not influenced by the base-apex positioning and by the type of machine used [3] .…”