Echocardiographic strain analysis reflects impaired ventricular function in youth with pediatric-onset systemic lupus erythematosus

BACKGROUND: Strain analysis with speckle-tracking echocardiography shows promise as a screening tool for silent myocardial dysfunction in pediatric-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (pSLE). We compared left ventricular (LV) systolic deformation (measured by strain) in children and adolescents with pSLE to controls, and assessed the relationship between strain, disease activity, and other non-invasive measures of cardiovascular health. METHODS: 20 pSLE subjects ages 9–21 underwent comprehensive cardiovascular testing, including 2D speckle-tracking echocardiography, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM), peripheral endothelial function testing, pulse wave velocity and analysis, and carotid ultrasound. Longitudinal apical-4 chamber (LS(A4C)) and midpoint circumferential strain (CS(mid)) were compared to that of 70 healthy controls using multivariable linear regression. Among pSLE subjects, Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to evaluate relationships between global longitudinal or circumferential strain and other measures of cardiovascular health. RESULTS: Average SLE disease duration was 3.2 years (standard deviation (SD) 2.1). 2/20 pSLE subjects had persistent disease activity, and only one met criteria for hypertension by ABPM. LS(A4C) was significantly reduced in pSLE subjects compared to controls (mean −18.3 (SD 3.2) vs. −21.8% (SD 2.2), p-value