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Noninvasive assessment of myocardial stiffness using shear wave elastography in Amyloidosis and Fabry disease
Caio Rf Cafezeiro1, Aristóteles Ac Neto1, Cristhian E Romero1
1From the Instituto do Coração do Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Background/Objectives:
Diastolic function comprises MS and impaired relaxation, and is essential for the comprehensive analysis of heart failure. The goal of this study was to investigate the use of cardiac shear wave elastography for assessing shear wave propagation speed and myocardial stiffness (MS) in Fabry disease (FD), cardiac amyloidosis (CA) and healthy volunteers (HV).
Methods:
We prospectively enrolled 60 participants, with 20 patients each in the CA, FD and HV groups. Echocardiogram, blood exams and walking test were achieved. MS evaluation was performed using an ultrasound scanner.
Results:
Shear wave propagation speed and MS were significantly higher in patients with CA than in HV in the basal anteroseptal segment (MS PLAX 6.6 ± 1.4 kPa vs. 5.38 ± 1.1 kPa, respectively, p = 0.01; PSAX 6.86 ± 1.4 kPa vs. 5.6 ± 1.2 kPa, respectively, p = 0.01) and in the right ventricle (5.9 ± 2.6 kPa vs. 4.0 ± 0.7 kPa, respectively, p = 0.003), with no difference in the mid anteroseptal segment and the apical septal. There was a difference in the MS of patients with CA in the right ventricle when compared to the FD group (5.9 ± 2.6 kPa vs. 4.4 ± 1.0 kPa, respectively, p = 0.01). There was no statistical difference between any myocardial segment in the FD group compared to the HV group.
Conclusions:
Shear wave propagation speed and MS were higher in patients with CA compared to FD and healthy volunteers. Evaluation of FD group did not reveal any difference from the control group.

