Feature-tracking cardiac magnetic resonance left ventricular global longitudinal strain improves 6\xa0months after kidney transplantation associated with reverse remodeling, not myocardial tissue characteristics

Abstract

To determine whether left ventricular (LV) global longitudinal strain (GLS) measured by feature-tracking (FT) cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) improves after kidney transplantation (KT) and to analyze associations between LV GLS, reverse remodeling and myocardial tissue characteristics. This is a prospective single-center cohort study of kidney transplant recipients who underwent two CMR examinations in a 3T scanner, including cines, tagging, T1 and T2 mapping. The baseline exam was done up to 10 days after transplantation and the follow-up after 6 months. Age and sex-matched healthy controls were also studied for comparison. A total of 44 patients [mean age 50 ± 11 years-old, 27 (61.4%) male] completed the two CMR exams. LV GLS improved from − 13.4% ± 3.0 at baseline to − 15.2% ± 2.7 at follow-up (p < 0.001), but remained impaired when compared with controls (− 17.7% ± 1.5, p = 0.007). We observed significant correlation between improvement in LV GLS with reductions of left ventricular mass index (r = 0.356, p = 0.018). Improvement in LV GLS paralleled improvements in LV stroke volume index (r = − 0.429, p = 0.004), ejection fraction (r = − 0.408, p = 0.006), global circumferential strain (r = 0.420, p = 0.004) and global radial strain (r = − 0.530, p = 0.002). There were no significant correlations between LV GLS, native T1 or T2 measurements (p > 0.05). In this study, we demonstrated that LV GLS measured by FT-CMR improves 6 months after KT in association with reverse remodeling, but not native T1 or T2 measurements.