Usefulness of Longitudinal Strain to Assess Remodeling of Right and Left Cardiac Chambers Following Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation.

Remodeling after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has been well characterized for the left ventricle (LV) but not for the other cardiac chambers. We aimed to describe conventional indices of cardiac remodeling and novel longitudinal strain (LS) in all 4 cardiac chambers post-TAVI and to explore gender remodeling disparities. Consecutive patients with significant aortic stenosis who underwent TAVI were included if echocardiograms in sinus rhythm before and 1-year postprocedure were available. Speckle tracking analysis was performed retrospectively to evaluate size and function of the 4 cardiac chambers. Baseline and 1-year data were compared. From a total of 612 patients who underwent TAVI, 213 were included in this study (82 ± 9 years old, 42% men). Although no significant size or function changes were seen for right cardiac chambers at follow-up, significant improvements were seen for ejection fraction (EF) and LS in both the LV and left atrium (LA) (p < 0.05 for both). The absolute percentage of LV and LA function improvement was higher for LS than for EF (p < 0.05). Women had smaller LV and right ventricular (RV) size, whereas parameters of LV and RV function were higher. All 1-year remodeling parameters were similar for men and women. Conventional LV remodeling parameters (LV mass) failed to improve 1 year after TAVI. However, novel strain-derived parameters of size and function showed remodeling of left chambers but not of RV or right atrium. The degree of LV and LA remodeling by LS is almost twice that of EF. Remodeling was similar for both genders.