The early detection of abnormal left ventricular systolic functions in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) remains a challenge. The aim of this study was to identify a novel method for the assessment of left ventricular systolic function in patients with HCM. A total of 65 patients with HCM were included in this study. The patients were divided into obstructive HCM (HOCM; 16 cases) and non-obstructive HCM (NOHCM; 49 cases) groups. The healthy control group comprised 48 participants. Two-dimensional (2D) speckle-tracking technology was used to measure the left ventricular global and segmental longitudinal strains and mitral annular displacement (MADs). Compared with healthy control group, the six segmental strains and the global strain of the left ventricle (LSglobal) increased while six segmental MADs and MADglobal of the mitral annulus decreased in the HOCM and NOHCM groups (P<0.05). In addition, the six segmental MADs of the mitral annulus were significantly negatively correlated with the six segmental strains of the left ventricle (r=-0.744 to -0.647, P<0.001). MADglobal was significantly negatively correlated with LSglobal (r=-0.857, P<0.001). The tissue motion annular displacement (TMAD) at the midpoint was significantly negatively correlated with LSglobal (r=-0.871, P<0.001). The 2D TMAD technique of measuring MAD was feasible and practically approachable for rapidly evaluating the left ventricular longitudinal global and segmental systolic functions of patients with HCM.
Keywords: echocardiography; hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; left ventricular function; tissue motion annular displacement; two-dimensional strain.