Feature-Tracking Left Ventricular Global Longitudinal Strain Improves 6 Months After Kidney Transplantation Associated With Reverse Remodeling, Not Myocardial Tissue Characteristics

Abstract PurposeTo determine whether left ventricular (LV) global longitudinal strain (GLS) measured by feature-tracking (FT) cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) improves after kidney transplantation (KT) and to analyze associations between LV GLS, reverse remodeling, and myocardial tissue characteristics.MethodsThis is a prospective single-center cohort study of kidney transplant recipients who underwent two CMR examinations in a 3T scanner, including cines, tagging, T1 and T2 mapping. The baseline exam was done until 10 days after transplantation and the follow-up after 6 months. Age and sex-matched healthy controls were also studied for comparison. ResultsA total of 44 patients (mean age 50 ± 11 years-old, 27 (61.4%) male) completed the two CMR exams. LV GLS improved from -13.4% +/- 3.0 at baseline to -15.2% +/- 2.7 at follow-up (p < 0.001), but remained impaired when compared with controls (-17.7% +/- 1.5, p = 0.007). We observed significant correlation between improvement in LV GLS with reductions of left ventricular mass index (r = 0.356, p= 0.018). Improvement in LV GLS paralleled improvements in LV stroke volume index (r = -0.429, p = 0.004), ejection fraction (r = -0.408, p = 0.006), global circumferential strain (r = 0.420, p = 0.004) and global radial strain (r = -0.530, p = 0.002). There were no significant correlations between LV GLS, native T1 or T2 measurements (p > 0.05). ConclusionIn this study, we demonstrated that LV GLS measured by FT-CMR improves 6 months after KT in association with reverse remodeling, but not native T1 or T2 measurements.