Cited 7 times since 2020 (2 per year) source: EuropePMC European heart journal. Cardiovascular Imaging, Volume 21, Issue 11, 1 1 2020, Pages 1248-1258 Incremental value of left ventricular global longitudinal strain in a newly proposed staging classification based on cardiac damage in patients with severe aortic stenosis. Vollema EM, Amanullah MR, Prihadi EA, Ng ACT, van der Bijl P, Sin YK, Ajmone Marsan N, Ding ZP, Généreux P, Leon MB, Ewe SH, Delgado V, Bax JJ

Aims

Cardiac damage in severe aortic stenosis (AS) can be classified according to a recently proposed staging classification. The present study investigated the incremental prognostic value of left ventricular (LV) global longitudinal strain (GLS) over stages of cardiac damage in patients with severe AS.

Methods and results

From an ongoing registry, a total of 616 severe symptomatic AS patients with available LV GLS by speckle tracking echocardiography were selected and retrospectively analysed. Patients were categorized according to cardiac damage on echocardiography: Stage 0 (no damage), Stage 1 (LV damage), Stage 2 (mitral valve or left atrial damage), Stage 3 (tricuspid valve or pulmonary artery vasculature damage), or Stage 4 (right ventricular damage). LV GLS was divided by quintiles and assigned to the different stages. The endpoint was all-cause mortality. Over a median follow-up of 44 [24-89] months, 234 (38%) patients died. LV GLS was associated with all-cause mortality independent of stage of cardiac damage. After incorporation of LV GLS by quintiles into the staging classification, Stages 2-4 were independently associated with outcome. LV GLS showed incremental prognostic value over clinical characteristics and stages of cardiac damage.

Conclusion

In this large single-centre cohort of severe AS patients, incorporation of LV GLS by quintiles in a novel proposed staging classification resulted in refinement of risk stratification by identifying patients with more advanced cardiac damage. LV GLS was shown to provide incremental prognostic value over the originally proposed staging classification.

Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging. 2020 10;21(11):1248-1258