Systolic myocardial dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: identification at MR imaging with cine...

To determine if cine displacement encoding with stimulated echoes (DENSE) can help to identify and determine the patterns of subclinical myocardial systolic dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) when compared with cine DENSE in control patients.

After obtaining approval from the institutional ethics committee and written informed consent from the patients, 37 patients with type 2 DM without overt heart disease and 23 age-matched control patients were prospectively included in the study. The patients underwent standard cine magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with two-dimensional cine DENSE acquisitions. Circumferential (Ecc) and radial (Err) systolic strains were measured on short-axis views at basal, mid, and apical left ventricular levels. Longitudinal strain (Ell) was measured on four- and two-chamber views. Statistical testing included the intraclass correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression analysis.

The intraobserver intraclass correlation coefficient values were 0.85, 0.95, and 0.90, and the interobserver intraclass correlation coefficient values were 0.79, 0.91 and 0.80 for Ecc, Err, and Ell, respectively. The left ventricular ejection fraction was in the reference range and similar between the groups, and the patients with DM showed a decrease in Ecc (-14.4%±1.6 vs -17.0%±1.6, P<.001), Err (36.2%±10.9 vs 44.4%±9.9, P=.006) and Ell (-12.9%±2.1 vs -15.5%±1.6, P<.001) compared with the control patients. Finally, DM was independently associated with Ecc (P<.001), Err (P=.05) and Ell (P=.01) after adjustment for age, sex, hypertension, body mass index, and left ventricular mass.

Cine DENSE, a motion-encoding MR imaging technique for myocardial strain assessment with high spatial resolution, appears to be useful in the identification of subclinical myocardial dysfunction in patients with DM.