Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Heart failure (HF) is a condition that develops after the heart becomes damaged or weakened. Heart failure imposes a huge social and economic burden. It is estimated that 600,000 Canadian living with heart failure. With an aging population this value will continue to rise. Therefore, early detection of heart dysfunction and accurate prediction of heart failure related adverse events will help physicians better manage more risky patients. In field of cardiovascular imaging, the change of the length of cardiac wall in the longitudinal direction and circumference direction (global longitudinal strain (GLS) and global circumferential strain (GCS)), commonly measured at the middle layer of heart wall by echocardiography, have shown to have better diagnostic value of heart dysfunction and predictive value of adverse outcome, compared to conventionally used left ventricular ejectional fraction (LVEF). In my projects, we use the developed in-house advanced technique to assess GLS and GCS in each layer of heart wall by using cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (cardiac MRI) in 453 subjects of Alberta HEART Study. MRI is the most accurate and reproducible non-invasive imaging tool. Our results demonstrated that the outer layer of longitudinal strain has better diagnostic value when evaluating systolic function, while the middle and outer layers of longitudinal strain have better predictive value of short to moderate term clinical outcomes, defined as death, or a cardiovascular hospitalization and an emergency room visit. All 3 layers of GLS are not the same. Assessing the layer-specific longitudinal strains is valuable at evaluating systolic function, especially GLS of the outer layer of myocardium, and predicting adverse outcomes, especially the middle and outer layers of myocardium.