[Effect of left ventricular global longitudinal strain on prognosis of septic/septic shock patients: a Meta analysis]

To systematically evaluate the effects of left ventricular global longitudinal strain (GLS) determined by two dimensional speckle tracking imaging technology (2D-STI) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) on the prognosis of patients with sepsis/septic shock.

Databases such as the National Library of Medicine PubMed database, Dutch medical abstracts Embase, Cochrane Library, Netherlands Elsevier, Springer and China biomedical literature database (CBMdisc), China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI), Wanfang database, China science and technology journal full-text database, Vip Chinese biomedical journal database were searched from the establishment of literature database to April 2018 to study GLS, LVEF and their relationships with mortality of septic/septic shock patients. The literatures screening and data collecting were independently conducted by two researchers, and the quality of the included literature was evaluated. The sensitivity and heterogeneity analysis were performed with RevMan 5.3 software, and the combined effects were calculated. Funnel plot was used to evaluate publication bias.

A total of 6 articles including 5 English articles and 1 Chinese article were enrolled. There were 503 patients, 333 in the survival group and 170 in the death group. The quality of the literature was high, and the Newcastle-Ottawa scale (NOS) score was 8-9. Meta-analysis showed that short-term mortality was associated with higher GLS in patients with sepsis/septic shock [standardized mean difference (SMD) = -0.47, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) = -0.76 to -0.18, Z = 3.16, P = 0.002], and there was no significant difference in LVEF between the survival group and the death group (SMD = 0.18, 95%CI = -0.03-0.39, Z = 1.64, P = 0.10). Sensitivity analysis was carried out for each effect index by removing each document one by one, and the results showed that there was no significant change in the combined effect before and after each document, indicating that the results were stable. The funnel plot showed that the effect points of each literature were roughly in the form of "inverted funnels" with a large symmetric distribution centered on the combined effect, but the number of studies included in this study was too small, so the publication bias could not be completely excluded.

Compared with LVEF, GLS might be a more sensitive indicator for detecting myocardial dysfunction in patients with sepsis/septic shock and might have important predictive value for short-term mortality.