INTRODUCTION

In patients with chronic coronary syndromes, hyperventilation followed by apnea has been shown to unmask myocardium susceptible to inducible deoxygenation. The aim of this study was to assess whether such a provoked response is co-localized with myocardial dysfunction.

METHODS

A group of twenty-six CAD patients with a defined stenosis (quantitative coronary angiography > 50%) underwent a cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) exam prior to revascularization. Healthy volunteers older than 50 years served as controls ( = 12). Participants hyperventilated for 60s followed by brief apnea. Oxygenation-sensitive images were analyzed for changes in myocardial oxygenation and strain.

RESULTS

In healthy subjects, hyperventilation resulted in global myocardial deoxygenation (-10.2 ± 8.2%, < 0.001) and augmented peak circumferential systolic strain (-3.3 ± 1.6%, < 0.001). At the end of apnea, myocardial signal intensity had increased (+9.1 ± 5.3%, < 0.001) and strain had normalized to baseline. CAD patients had a similar global oxygenation response to hyperventilation (-5.8 ± 9.6%, = 0.085) but showed no change in peak strain from their resting state (-1.3 ± 1.6%), which was significantly attenuated in comparison the strain response observed in controls ( = 0.008). With apnea, the CAD patients showed an attenuated global oxygenation response to apnea compared to controls (+2.7 ± 6.2%, < 0.001). This was accompanied by a significant depression of peak strain (3.0 ± 1.7%, < 0.001), which also differed from the control response ( = 0.025). Regional analysis demonstrated that post-stenotic myocardium was most susceptible to de-oxygenation and systolic strain abnormalities during respiratory maneuvers. CMR measures at rest were unable to discriminate post-stenotic territory ( > 0.05), yet this was significant for both myocardial oxygenation [area under the curve (AUC): 0.88, > 0.001] and peak strain (AUC: 0.73, = 0.023) measured with apnea. A combined analysis of myocardial oxygenation and peak strain resulted in an incrementally higher AUC of 0.91, < 0.001 than strain alone.

CONCLUSION

In myocardium of patients with chronic coronary syndromes and primarily intermediate coronary stenoses, cine oxygenation-sensitive CMR can identify an impaired vascular and functional response to a vasoactive breathing maneuver stimulus indicative of inducible ischemia.