Prevalence of Mitral Annular Disjunction at Cardiac MRI: Results from a Multicenter Registry.

Purpose To determine the prevalence of mitral annular disjunction (MAD) in patients undergoing cardiac MRI for various clinical indications and to assess the association of MAD with arrhythmia, mitral valve prolapse (MVP), and myocardial alteration. Materials and Methods This study analyzed data from a retrospective observational registry of consecutive patients undergoing cardiac MRI for different clinical indications. Cardiac MRI examinations were performed from January 2019 to June 2019 at 13 Italian hospitals.

Long-Term Clinical-Pathologic Results of Enzyme Replacement Therapy in Prehypertrophic Fabry Disease Cardiomyopathy.

Background: The limited ability of enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) in removing globotriaosylceramide from cardiomyocytes is recognized for advanced Fabry disease cardiomyopathy (FDCM). Prehypertrophic FDCM is believed to be cured or stabilized by ERT. However, no pathologic confirmation is available.

Takotsubo syndrome: left atrial and ventricular myocardial strain impairment in the subacute and convalescent phases assessed by CMR.

Background: We investigated the differences in impairment of left ventricle (LV) and left atrium (LA) contractile dysfunction between subacute and convalescent takotsubo syndrome (TTS), using myocardial strain analysis by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) feature-tracking technique.

Methods: We retrospectively selected 50 patients with TTS clinical-radiological diagnosis who underwent CMR within 30 days since symptoms onset: 19 studied during the early subacute phase (sTTS, ≤ 7 days) and 31 during the convalescence (cTTS, 8-30 days). We measured the following: LV global longitudinal, circumferential, and radial strain (lvGLS, lvGCS, lvGRS) and strain rate (SR) and LA reservoir (laS_r), conduit (laS_cd), and booster pump strain (laS_bp) and strain rate (laSR_r, laSR_cd, laSR_bp).

Imaging biomarkers in cardiac CT: moving beyond simple coronary anatomical assessment.

Cardiac computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is considered the standard non-invasive tool to rule-out obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). Moreover, several imaging biomarkers have been developed on cardiac-CT imaging to assess global CAD severity and atherosclerotic burden, including coronary calcium scoring, the segment involvement score, segment stenosis score and the Leaman-score. Myocardial perfusion imaging enables the diagnosis of myocardial ischemia and microvascular damage, and the CT-based fractional flow reserve quantification allows to evaluate non-invasively hemodynamic impact of the coronary stenosis.

Comprehensive echocardiographic assessment of right ventricular function, pulmonary arterial elastic properties and ventricular-vascular coupling in adult patients with repaired tetralogy of fallot: clinical significance of 3D derived indices.

We aimed to comprehensively analyze by three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (3DSTE) and Doppler echocardiography right ventricular (RV) performance, pulmonary arterial (PA) elastic properties and right ventricular-pulmonary artery coupling (RVPAC) in patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (rTOF) and assess the feasibility and clinical utility of related echocardiographic indices. Twenty-four adult patients with rTOF and twenty-four controls were studied. RV end-diastolic volume(3D-RVEDV), RV end-systolic volume(3D-RVESV), RV ejection fraction(3D-RVEF), RV longitudinal strain(3D-RVLS) and RV area strain(3D-RVAS) were calculated by 3DSTE.