Assessment of biventricular function with speckle tracking echocardiography in newly-diagnosed adult-onset asthma

There is limited number of studies on the effect of asthma disease on cardiac functions. The aim of this study was to investigate if there was any association between adult onset asthma and cardiac dysfunction.

Total of 83 nonsmoking adult onset asthma patients aged between 18 and 65, and 83 control subjects with comparable age and sex distribution were included in the study.None of the subjects had any chronic cardiovascular or systemic diseases.Two-dimensional, M-mode and tissue Doppler examinations were performed. STE analysis was obtained using the QLAB software. Complete blood count and high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) levels were measured.

There was no difference between two groups in terms of standard echocardiography and Doppler parameters. While tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE) was observed to be lower in asthmatics (24.9 ± 2.0 vs. 25.5 ± 2.1, p = 0.043), right ventricular myocardial performance index (RV MPI) was higher (0.36 ± 0.07 vs 0.32 ± 0.06, p˂0.001). There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of left ventricular STE parameters. Measurements of right ventricular global longitudinal strain (RVGLS) and right ventricular free wall strain (RVfree) were observed to be lower in the asthma group (-20.3 ± 2.9 vs -21.5 ± 2.9, p = 0.007; -24.0 ± 3.0 vs 25.1 ± 2.9, p = 0.009, respectively).

-We demonstrated that while adult onset mild-stage asthma patients have normal parameters in standard echocardiography, they have reduced right ventricular functions by STE.