Abstract:

Introduction: The aim of this study was to use speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) for identifying subclinical global systolic function abnormalities in chronic asymptomatic alcoholic patients with a normal ejection fraction. Patients and Methods: We included 30 healthy subjects (age 34.8 ± 5.8 years) and 75 asymptomatic alcoholic patients (age 39.8 ± 6.5 years) and divided them into two groups according to their total lifetime dose of ethanol (TLDE): group I (TLDE < 15 kg ethanol/kg body weight) and group II (TLDE ≥ 15 kg ethanol/kg body weight). In the two-dimensional (2D)-STE analysis, the left ventricular (LV) global longitudinal strain (G-LS), longitudinal global strain rate in systole (G-SRsys), longitudinal global strain rate in early diastole (G-SRearly) and longitudinal global strain rate in late diastole (G-SRlate) values were obtained. Results: Alcoholic patients had larger end-systolic and end-diastolic dimensions, thicker interventricular septal and posterior wall and higher LV mass index. However, there were no differences in the end-systolic and end-diastolic dimensions and LV mass index among them. The ejection fraction did not differ between the groups. The G-LS values were lower in alcoholic patients (p< 0.001). G-LS was found to be significantly lower among alcoholic patients, although the LV mass index and LV dimensions remained unchanged. Although G-SRsys was lower in alcoholic patients compared with that in controls (p= 0.03), there were no differences in the G-SRearly and G-SRlate values. There was a significant correlation between G-LS values and TLDE (r= 0.49, p< 0.001). Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating the presence of early functional abnormalities of longitudinal systolic function by 2D-STE in chronic alcoholic patients. These functional mechanics have a parallel impairment with the increase in alcohol consumption.

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