Associations of Electromechanical Activation Time With Cardiac Structure and Function and Clinical Outcomes

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Clinical Research

Background:

• Electromechanical activation time (EMAT) is a measure from acoustic cardiography.
• Increased EMAT is linked to decreased left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF).

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the utility of EMAT as a community-based cardiovascular screening tool.
• To evaluate EMAT's association with cardiac structure, function, and clinical outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Acoustic cardiography, cardiac MRI, and blood sampling were performed on 3,401 participants.
• Clinical outcomes were tracked over a median of 12.4 years.
• Multivariable models and C-statistics assessed EMAT's predictive capabilities.

Main Results:

• Higher EMAT correlated with lower LVEF and increased left ventricular end-diastolic volume.
• EMAT demonstrated poor discrimination for reduced LVEF, inferior to NT-proBNP.
• EMAT's association with adverse CV events was not independent of NT-proBNP.

Conclusions:

• Increased EMAT is associated with lower LVEF and adverse prognosis in a community cohort.
• EMAT has limited discriminatory capacity for identifying reduced LVEF.
• EMAT is not an independent predictor of adverse cardiovascular events when NT-proBNP is considered.