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[Cardiac impairment detected by echocardiography in patients with ankylosing spondylitis]
Insights
Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients frequently show mild aortic and valve structural changes, particularly with early or advanced disease. These echocardiographic findings are generally not clinically severe.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Rheumatology
- Medical Imaging
Background:
- Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory disease primarily affecting the spine.
- Cardiac involvement in AS can occur but requires detailed assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate cardiac structural and functional changes in AS patients using echocardiography.
- To correlate these cardiac findings with clinical disease characteristics and ECG changes.
Main Methods:
- Complete echocardiographic examinations were performed on 40 patients with ankylosing spondylitis.
- Statistical analysis was used to compare echocardiographic findings with clinical data (age, duration, stage, form, activity) and ECG results.
Main Results:
- Half of AS patients exhibited structural changes in the aorta and its valves, including aortic root dilatation and mild insufficiency.
- These aortic and valve changes were more prevalent in patients with early-onset, long-standing, or advanced AS.
- Mild diastolic dysfunction of the left ventricle was also associated with disease characteristics, while other cardiac pathologies were not more frequent.
Conclusions:
- Echocardiography reveals common, mild structural cardiac abnormalities, particularly involving the aorta and its valves, in ankylosing spondylitis patients.
- The incidence of these cardiac changes correlates with disease severity and duration.
- Detected cardiac changes were not clinically severe and did not necessitate specific treatment or surgery.
Abstract:
The authors subjected to complete echocardiographic examination 40 patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) in order to assess pathological changes of the heart (changes of the structure and function of valves, myocardial function of the left ventricle and the pericardium) and compare their incidence with clinical characteristics of the patients (age, duration, stage, form and activity of the disease) as well as with the presence of ECG changes. Based on the results and their statistical analysis they revealed that structural changes of the aorta and its valves associated with dilatation of the root of the aorta, its mild insufficiency and the possible finding of a typical bump on its posterior wall is found in half the patients with AS, being more frequent when the disease develops early, when it persists for a long time or is in an advanced stage. A similar relationship is found also in the presence of mild diastolic dysfunction of the left ventricle. The authors did not observe a more frequent incidence of other pathological changes of the heart in patients with AS. None of the detected changes were clinically severe and did not call for aimed treatment or surgery. In the conclusion the authors compare the assessed facts with data in the literature and confront data in the literature.