Longitudinal myocardial function assessed by tissue velocity, strain, and strain rate tissue Doppler echocardiography in patients with AL (primary) cardiac amyloidosis.

BACKGROUND AL amyloidosis with heart failure is associated with decreased longitudinal myocardial contraction measured by pulsed tissue Doppler imaging. We sought to clarify whether new modalities of myocardial strain Doppler (change in length per unit length) or strain rate (the temporal derivative of strain) were more sensitive than tissue Doppler and could detect early regional myocardial dysfunction before the onset of congestive heart failure (CHF) in patients with AL (primary) amyloidosis. METHODS AND RESULTS Ninety-seven biopsy-proven patients with AL amyloidosis were divided into 3 groups. Group 1 patients had no cardiac involvement (n=36), group 2 had heart involvement but no CHF (n=32), and group 3 had heart involvement and CHF (n=29). All patients underwent tissue velocity (TV) imaging, strain, and strain rate imaging (SR) at the basal, mid, and apical ventricle in 2 apical views. With the use of TV, differences in systolic function were only apparent between group 3 (basal mean value, 3.0+/-1.1 cm/s) and groups 1 and 2 (5.0+/-1.3 and 4.6+/-1.2 cm/s, respectively). In contrast, basal peak systolic SR (l/s) showed significant differences among all 3 groups (-2.0+/-0.4, -1.55+/-0.6, and -0.76+/-0.3 for groups 1 to 3, respectively. P<0.01). Basal strain also demonstrated statistically significant differences among the groups (-19+/-4%, -15+/-4.5%, and -8.0+/-5%; P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS Cardiac amyloidosis is characterized by an early impairment in systolic function at a time when fractional shortening remains normal. This abnormality precedes the onset of CHF and can be detected by strain and SR but is not apparent by TV imaging.