The potential role of 2D-speckle tracking echocardiography for detecting left ventricular systolic dysfunction in patients with Parkinson’s disease: a case control study

Abstract

Background

The prevalence of heart failure among patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) was found to be twice that of the general population. The aim of this work is to evaluate the global left ventricular systolic function in patients with PD in comparison with healthy controls using speckle tracking echocardiography and to correlate the global left ventricular systolic function with both motor and cognitive functions in PD patients.

Methods

A case-control study was conducted on 40 patients diagnosed with PD and 40 healthy controls. Evaluation and staging of PD were performed using the Modified Hoehn and Yahr staging scale (H&Y staging) and Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). Cognitive assessment for PD patients was done using Parkinson’s Disease - Cognitive Rating Scale (PD-CRS). Conventional and two-dimensional (2D) speckle-tracking strain echocardiography was done for both groups to assess the global left ventricular systolic function.

Results

There was a statistically significant difference between PD patients and controls regarding global longitudinal strain (p = 0.025), left ventricular end-diastolic dimension (p = 0.032), left ventricular end-systolic dimension (p = 0.003) and ejection fraction (p = 0.015). There were statistically significant negative correlations between both H&Y staging and UPDRS and both GLS (p ˂ 0.001, p ˂ 0.001) and EF (p = 0.017, p = 0.05). There were statistically significant positive correlations between PD-CRS and both GLS (p = 0.025) and EF (p = 0.012)

Conclusion

PD patients were found to have significant subclinical left ventricular systolic dysfunction in comparison with healthy controls. Such dysfunction was correlated with the severity of the motor disability and cognitive impairment.

Keywords:

• Parkinsonism
• ejection fraction
• global longitudinal strain
• speckle-tracking echocardiography
• heart failure
• systolic dysfunction

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

Ethical approval and consent to participate

The study protocol was approved by the local Ethical Committee of Beni-Suef, University Faculty of Medicine (reference number is not applicable) and was in agreement with the ‘World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.’ Informed written consent was obtained from every patient with acceptance to participate in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).