Left Ventricular 3-Dimensional Global Longitudinal Strain Predicts All-Cause Mortality in Patients With Heart Transplant.

BACKGROUND

The prognostic value of 3-dimensional (3D)-left ventricular global longitudinal strain (LVGLS) in recipients of heart transplant (HT) reremains unknown. This study aimed to determine whether 3D-LVGLS was the more powerful predictor of poor outcomes in recipients of HT compared with 2-dimensional (2D)-LVGLS.

METHODS AND RESULTS

All consecutive adult patients who received HT and underwent at least 1 comprehensive 2D and 3D transthoracic echocardiographic examination for clinical surveillance were retrospectively enrolled. The end point was all-cause mortality. Prognostic model performance was assessed according to the C-statistic. The 3D-LVGLS measurements were feasible in 294 of 342 patients with HT (86%). The median follow-up time was 53 months, and 44 HT redied. Receiver operating characteristic curves revealed that the area under the curve for predicting all-cause mortality was greater for 3D-LVGLS than 2D-LVGLS (0.77 versus 0.67, =0.012). When HT stratified patients with HT into tertiles according to 3D-LVGLS values, patients with lower 3D-LVGLS had worse outcome (<0.001). The multivariable Cox analysis showed that the model with 3D-LVGLS (hazard ratio [HR],1.44 [95% CI,1.24-1.68]; <0.001; C-statistic=0.814) was better in predicting death than the model with 2D-LVGLS (HR, 1.19 [95% CI, 1.06-1.32]; =0.002; C-statistic=0.772). The best cutoff value of 3D-LVGLS for detecting all-cause mortality was -16.1%, with a sensitivity of 63.6% and a specificity of 84.0%.

CONCLUSIONS

The 3D-LVGLS was a powerful predictor of all-cause mortality in patients receiving HT and provided greater prognostic value than 2D-LVGLS. Our study highlighted the potential of evaluating 3D-LVGLS for risk stratification in recipients of HT.