Awais Kanza, Kralj Lana, Cerne Cercek Andreja, Kirn Borut
Institute of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Department of Cardiology, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Biomedicines. 2025 Mar 14;13(3):712. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines13030712.
Acute myocarditis (AM) affects myocardial structure and function, assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance late gadolinium enhancement (CMR-LGE) and speckle tracking echocardiography (STE), respectively; however, the correlation between the two techniques at the segmental level is inconsistent. We studied natural heterogeneity and anatomical orientation mismatch as potential causes of correlation discrepancy. A total of 30 AM patients underwent left ventricle LGE-CMR and STE measurement, acquiring 18 segmental values depicting edema extent and peak longitudinal strain, respectively. Baseline segmental correlation was compared to average patient segmental correlation and to segmental correlation after spatial resolution reduction achieved by averaging adjacent segments in four successive iterations, where the degree of spatial resolution reduction was evaluated based on the relative decrease in segmental standard deviation. Baseline segmental correlation was weak, i.e., r = 0.24 ( < 0.05) but improved in fitted SLGE and SpLS baseline correlation (r = 0.44, < 0.05) and in average patient correlation (r = 0.55, < 0.05). Iterative spatial resolution reduction increased the correlation to r = 0.49 and r = 0.51 and then decreased it to r = 0.11 ( < 0.05) and r = 0.07 ( > 0.05), with corresponding decreases in segmental standard deviation relative to baseline from σ = 12.87 to σ/σ = 0.68, 0.51, 0.38, and 0.29 in SLGE values and σ = 4.77 to σ/σ = 0.57, 0.41, 0.31, and 0.23 in SpLS. Improved correlation in average patients is associated with natural heterogeneity, which indicates a need to develop more robust indicators of ventricular function. The improved correlation in moderate spatial resolution reduction indicates a potential solution for anatomic orientation mismatch between CMR-LGE and STE techniques.
急性心肌炎（AM）会影响心肌结构和功能，分别通过心脏磁共振延迟钆增强（CMR-LGE）和斑点追踪超声心动图（STE）进行评估；然而，这两种技术在节段水平上的相关性并不一致。我们研究了自然异质性和解剖方向不匹配作为相关性差异的潜在原因。共有30例AM患者接受了左心室LGE-CMR和STE测量，分别获取了18个节段值，描述水肿程度和纵向应变峰值。将基线节段相关性与平均患者节段相关性以及通过在四个连续迭代中对相邻节段进行平均实现空间分辨率降低后的节段相关性进行比较，其中基于节段标准差的相对降低来评估空间分辨率降低的程度。基线节段相关性较弱，即r = 0.24（<0.05），但在拟合的SLGE和SpLS基线相关性中有所改善（r = 0.44，<0.05）以及平均患者相关性中（r = 0.55，<0.05）。迭代空间分辨率降低使相关性增加到r = 0.49和r = 0.51，然后又降低到r = 0.11（<0.05）和r = 0.07（>0.05），SLGE值中节段标准差相对于基线相应降低，从σ = 12.87降至σ/σ = 0.68、0.51、0.38和0.29，SpLS中从σ = 4.77降至σ/σ = 0.57、0.41、0.31和0.23。平均患者中相关性的改善与自然异质性相关，这表明需要开发更稳健的心室功能指标。中等空间分辨率降低时相关性的改善表明了CMR-LGE和STE技术之间解剖方向不匹配的潜在解决方案。
