Predictive Values of Multiple Non-Invasive Markers for Myocardial Fibrosis in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Patients With Preserved Ejection Fraction

Abstract

Myocardial fibrosis assessed by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) on cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is associated with cardiovascular outcomes in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients, but little is known about the utility of non-invasive markers for detecting LGE. This study aims to explore the association between cardiacspecific biomarkers, CMR myocardial strain, left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and LGE in HCM patients with preserved ejection fraction (EF) and investigate the predictive values of these indexes for LGE. We recruited 33 healthy volunteers and 86 HCM patients with preserved EF to undergo contrast-enhanced CMR examinations. In total, 48 of 86 HCM patients had the presence of LGE. Serum high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (hs-cTnI) and N-terminal pro b-type natriuretic peptide (Nt-proBNP) levels were elevated in LGE-positive patients compared with LGE-negative patients. The LGE-positive patients had lower global longitudinal (GLS) and circumferential (GCS) strains than the LGE-negative group and the healthy controls. The LGE% was independently associated with the Nt-proBNP levels, GCS, MWT and beta-blocker treatment. In the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the combined parameters of Nt-proBNP≥108 pg/mL and MWT≥17.3 mm had good diagnostic performance for LGE, with a specificity of 81.3% and sensitivity of 70.0%. These data indicate that serum Nt-proBNP is a potential biomarker associated with LGE% and, combined with MWT, were useful for identifying myocardial fibrosis in HCM patients with preserved EF. Additionally, LV GCS may be a more sensitive indicator for reflecting the presence of myocardial fibrosis than GLS.