Objectives:

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is the leading cause of the hospital admission due to heart failure. Therefore, several studies have investigated the development of heart failure and the prevention of heart failure in patients with diastolic dysfunction. Although studies primarily concentrate upon the left ventricle and left atrial functions, there have been no studies to evaluate right ventricle function on the effect of heart failure development in this patient group. In this study, we sought to investigate whether right ventricle systolic function measured by right ventricle free wall longitudinal strain could predict heart failure in patients with diastolic dysfunction.

Materials and Methods:

Our study included 51 patients with diastolic dysfunction in transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and whose images were suitable for right ventricular free wall longitudinal strain measurement. All study populations were observed retrospectively. Developing heart failure was determined as the end point. All patients were divided into two groups according to the presence of heart failure.

Results:

The mean age of the study population was 63.1±9.5 years. No statistical difference was determined between the groups’ demographic and laboratory characteristics. When the echocardiographic parameters were evaluated. The left atrial reservoir strain (LASr) and the right ventricle free wall longitudinal strain (RV FWLS) were found as highly impaired in the heart failure group. In multivariate analysis, RV FWLS was an independent predictor of heart failure development in diastolic dysfunction. A cut-off value of RV FWLS was found as -15.5% using ROC analysis.

Conclusion:

In this study RV FWLS was demonstrated as an independent predictor of heart failure in diastolic dysfunction. Larger, prospective studies are necessary to determine the impact of RV FWLS on predicting heart failure.

Keywords: Heart Failure, Right Ventricle, Strain