Abstract

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a life-threatening condition that reflects a progressive elevation in pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) with subsequent right ventricular (RV) dysfunction and heart failure. It is previously reported that RV strain imaging by using echocardiography is closely associated with poor outcomes in patients with PH. Nevertheless, it remains to be elucidated whether RV strain imaging of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) predicts prognosis in patients with PH. So, the purpose of this study is to investigate which CMR parameters among ventricular volumes, ejection fraction (EF), and strain are more effective for prognostic risk stratification in patients with PH. We retrospectively analysed CMR data for 39 consecutive patients with PH who underwent right heart catheterization and CMR between 2015 and 2021. The endpoint of this study is defined as all-cause hospitalization which consists of worsening of heart failure, therapeutic interventions, and all-cause deaths. During a median follow up period, 20 patients experienced all-cause hospitalization, including 4 of worsening of heart failure, 12 of therapeutic interventions, and 4 of deaths. Cox proportional hazards analyses indicated that RV free wall longitudinal strain (FWLS) was significantly associated with all-cause hospitalization (p=0.0086), but not LV parameters. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that patients with RVFWLS <-17.7 (by ROC curve) had a significantly higher risk of all-cause hospitalization in patients with PH (HR 4.0, 95%CI 1.6-9.8, p =0.0024). In conclusion, RVFWLS by CMR imaging may provide additional prognostic value noninvasively in patients with PH.