Correlation between global longitudinal peak systolic strain and coronary artery disease severity as assessed by the angiographically derived SYNTAX score

Apostolos Vrettos, David Dawson, Chrysanthos Grigoratos, Petros Nihoyannopoulos

In this study, we investigate the correlation between reduced global longitudinal peak systolic strain (GLPSS) and the SYNTAX score (SS) in patients undergoing coronary angiography. We examined 71 patients undergoing both echocardiogram and coronary angiography within 15 days. All patients had normal global and/or regional wall motion on resting echocardiogram. We calculated GLPSS using two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography. SS was calculated for each group of patients based on the presence and/or the severity of coronary artery disease (CAD): no CAD on angiogram (n=10, control group), low SS (n=36, SS<22) and high SS (n=25, SS≥22). We hypothesised that GLPSS at rest is inversely correlated with the angiographically derived SS. Age, sex and most of the risk factors were equally distributed among the groups. There was a significant inverse correlation between GLPSS and SS values (r(2)=0.3869, P<0.001). This correlation was weaker in the low-SS group (r(2)=0.1332, P<0.05), whereas it was lost in the high-SS group (r(2)=0.0002, P=NS). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis identified that the optimal cut-off for the detection of high-SS patients was 13.95% (sensitivity=71%, specificity=90%, P<0.001). The results of our study suggest that GLPSS might be promising for the detection of patients with high SYNTAX score on coronary angiogram. There is an inverse correlation between resting GLPSS and SS as assessed by coronary angiography. In patients with the highest SS, however, the correlation with GLPSS was less significant.