To evaluate both left and right ventricular (LV and RV) function in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) using cardiac magnetic resonance tissue-tracking (CMR-TT) technology and explore its clinical value. Methods: A total of 79 participants (including 47 patients with PAH and 32 healthy controls) underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI) with a short-axis balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) sequence. The biventricular cardiac function parameters and strain parameters were obtained by postprocessing with CVI42 software. A comparative analysis was performed between the LV and RV strain parameters in all PAH patients and in PAH patients with reduced or preserved cardiac function. Results: The results showed preferable repeatability of CMR-TT in analyzing the global radial strain (GRS), circumferential strain (GCS), and longitudinal strain (GLS) of the left and right ventricles in the PAH group. The GRS, GCS, and GLS of the left and right ventricles except for LV GRS (LVGRS) of PAH patients were significantly lower than those of healthy controls (p < 0.05 for all). The GRS and GCS of the left and right ventricles showed a moderate correlation in the PAH group (r = 0.323, p = 0.02; r = 0.301, p = 0.04, respectively). PAH patients with preserved RV function (n = 9) showed significantly decreased global and segmental RS, CS, and LS of the right ventricles than healthy controls (p < 0.05 for all), except for basal RVGCS (RVGCS-b, p = 0.996). Only the LVGLS was significantly different between the PAH patients with preserved LV function (n = 32) and the healthy controls (−14.23 ± 3.01% vs. −16.79 ± 2.86%, p < 0.01). Conclusions: As a nonradioactive and noninvasive technique, CMR-TT has preferable feasibility and repeatability in quantitatively evaluating LV and RV strain parameters in PAH patients and can be used to effectively detect early biventricular myocardial damage in patients with PAH.
Keywords: CMR-TT; PAH; cardiac magnetic resonance tissue tracking; pulmonary arterial hypertension.