Assessment of left-atrial strain parameters in patients with frequent ventricular ectopic beats without structural heart disease.

Abstract

Ventricular ectopic beats (VEBs) are often encountered in daily clinical practice. Clinical significance of VEBs seen in patients without structural cardiovascular diseases is controversial. We aimed to investigate the effects of VEBs on left atrium (LA) function using speckle tracking echocardiography with LA strain parameters. Patients with frequent VEBs (more than 30 times in 1h, according to the Lown classification) were identified. Identified patients were evaluated by speckle tracking methods. There were 40 patients with frequent VEBs and 40 controls in our study. The general characteristics were similar of the study population. The LA global longitudinal strain parameters were significantly different. Global Peak atrial longitudinal strain (PALS) (38.39±7.93 vs. 44.15±6.71, p=0.001) and peak atrial contraction strain (PACS) (16.37±4.58 vs. 20.49±3.65, p=0.000) were revealed significantly lower in the VEBs group. Time to peak longitudinal strain (TPLS) was found significantly longer in the VEBs group [485.5 (352-641) vs. 435 (339-516.5) p=0.000]. Number of VEBS was correlated with TPLS (r=0.499, p=0.000). PALS and PACS were negatively correlated with number of VEBs (r=-0.348, p=0.002 and r=-0.444, p=0.000, respectively). We described that in this study, The LA functions are affected by VEBs adversely. This deterioration is increasing as the number of VEBs.