Evaluation of longitudinal left ventricular function in patients with coronary artery ectasia and vitamin D deficiency by 2D speckle tracking echocardiography.

OBJECTIVES

Coronary artery ectasia (CAE) is defined as the dilation of at least one segment of the coronary arteries that reaches at least 1.5 times the size of a normal neighboring segment. It has been shown that left ventricular (LV) diastolic function is impaired in patients with CAE. Also, it has been shown that LV function is impaired in vitamin D-deficient subjects compared with vitamin D-sufficient subjects and vitamin D deficiency is prevalent in CAE patients. We hypothesized that LV function is impaired in patients with CAE so we evaluated longitudinal LV myocardial function by 2D speckle tracking echocardiography (2DSTE) in patients with CAE and vitamin D deficiency without significant coronary artery stenosis and compared the results with those of subjects with vitamin D deficiency and near-normal coronary arteries.

METHODS

Our study population comprised 21 consecutive patients with CAE and without significant coronary artery stenosis (<50%) and 31 control subjects with near-normal coronary arteries. All subjects had vitamin D deficiency.

RESULTS

All 2DSTE-derived indices of longitudinal LV function, comprised of the absolute values of systolic strain (14.0±2.7% vs 15.4±2.3%, P=.039), systolic strain rate (1.2±0.2/s vs 1.3±0.2/s, P=.015), early diastolic strain rate (1.1±0.3/s vs 1.3±0.3 s , P=.030), and late diastolic strain rate (0.8±0.2/s vs 1±0.2/s P=.005), were reduced in the patients with CAE and vitamin D deficiency.

CONCLUSIONS

The systolic and diastolic functions of the LV in the patients with CAE and vitamin D deficiency were impaired as evaluated by 2DSTE.