Background .– The left atrium is a marker of clinical and subclinical cardiovascular disease. The additional role of left atrial (LA) and left ventricular (LV) speckle-derived strain parameters has not been assessed in an aged population, included in a prospective cohort of subjects with a long-term follow-up.
Objectives .– To determine whether LV and LA global strain is a predictor of cardiovascular events in a population, beyond other clinical and morphological characteristics.
Methods and results .– The COVADIS study aims to analyse the relationship between cardiac and cerebral ageing, studied multidimensionnally (biology, MRI, echocardiography), and the determinants of cognitive impairment. We performed a complete echocardiographic examination and measured LV and LA peak systolic global longitudinal strain using a semi-automatic speckle tracking software in 85 subjects aged over 65 years. The endpoint was a composite cardiovascular (CV) criterion of coronary event, stroke or death. In univariate analysis, the main predictors of CV events are depicted in the table. The Kaplan-Meier curves show that LA area > 20 cm 2 was associated with a higher risk of CV events. Multivariate analysis could not be performed due to the low number of CV events. LV and LA peak systolic global longitudinal strains were not associated with CV events.
Conclusion .– These early and preliminary results confirm the feasibility and reproducibility of deformation measurements in this population, although not associated with CV events, and is currently extended to a cohort of over 2000 patients.
