Novel Cardiac Imaging Prognostic Markers of Clinical Outcome in Patients With Chronic Aortic Regurgitation

Severe aortic regurgitation is a common valvular heart disease with prevalence of approximately 1%, affecting rather younger patients. The surgical treatment is the only causal treatment; it is recommended in patients with severe symptomatic aortic regurgitation. The optimal timing of the surgery is crucial because there is a certain risk of perioperative mortality and most patients require lifelong anticoagulation therapy. It is widely accepted, that asymptomatic patients with severely dilated left ventricle with systolic impairment have worse postoperative prognosis. We aim to evaluate native myocardial T1 relaxation time derived from cardiac magnetic resonance and global longitudinal left ventricular strain measured by echocardiography. These parameters are related to diffuse myocardial fibrosis and we expect to identify the cut off values, which correlate with further clinical course. This might enable better timing of the surgical treatment with the optimal postoperative left ventricular reverse remodelling and improved patient prognosis.