The value of multimodality imaging in hypertensive heart disease

Hypertensive heart disease (HHD) includes left ventricular (LV) functional and structural remodeling. For a long time, this involved only LV diastolic dysfunction and LV hypertrophy. However, development of imaging technique enabled more detailed insights into LV mechanics. Its impairment seems to be the first step in the cascade of HHD. Tissue characterization, obtained by cardiac magnetic resonance, opened a completely new chapter in the assessment of HHD. We report a case of a 47-year-old man who was referred to our department for a newly detected heart failure. CT angiography excluded relevant coronary disease and cardiac magnetic resonance revealed focuses of fibrosis in interventricular septum, in addition severely dilated LV with severely reduced ejection fraction. Considering the fact that the patient had longstanding uncontrolled arterial hypertension and that other causes of cardiac remodeling and dysfunction were excluded, we hypothesized that the multimodality imaging approach enabled prompt diagnosis of HHD.