Strain Echocardiography Is a Promising Tool for the Prognostic Assessment of Sarcoidosis

Sarcoidosis is a systemic chronic granulomatous disease with significant morbidity and mortality. Although basic transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is not recommended for the assessment of sarcoidosis, speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) has emerged as more sensitive for the early detection of cardiac sarcoidosis and its outcome. The aim of the study was to assess the utility of left atrial and left ventricular longitudinal STE for the prediction of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and sarcoidosis relapses. We enrolled 172 consecutive patients with sarcoidosis who underwent TTE and pulmonary function tests (PFTs). All patients were followed for a sarcoidosis relapse and MACE. During a median follow-up of 2217 days, 8 deaths, 23 MACE and 36 sarcoidosis relapses were observed. LV global longitudinal strain (GLS) was significantly lower in patients with MACE (p = 0.025). LV-GLS < 17.13% (absolute value) was identified as a fair predictor of MACE. Concerning the sarcoidosis control, TTE revealed a reduction of the LV ejection fraction (p = 0.0432), tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (p = 0.0272) and global peak atrial longitudinal strain (PALS, p = 0.0012) in patients with relapses. PALS < 28.5% was the best predictor of a sarcoidosis relapse. Our results highlight a potential role of LV-GLS and PALS as prognostic markers in sarcoidosis, supporting the use of STE in the clinical management of these patients.