Association between ventricular filling patterns and the extent of late enhancement on magnetic resonance imaging in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Abstract Objective To explore the relationship between ventricular filling curves and the extent of late enhancement on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Material and methods We retrospectively included consecutive patients with suspected and/or confirmed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and a control group of patients matched for age and sex who underwent cardiac MRI with evaluation of late enhancement. Among other determinations, we evaluated the following parameters on cine sequences: peak filling rate, time to the first peak filling rate, and filling rate normalized to the filling volume. Results Late enhancement was observed in 29 (73%) of the 40 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The normalized peak filling rate was significantly lower in patients with late enhancement (4.9 ± 1.6 in those with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy positive for late enhancement vs. 5.8 ± 2.2 in those with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy negative for late enhancement vs. 6.3 ± 1.5 in controls, p  = 0.008) and the time to peak filling was longer in patients with late enhancement (540.6 ± 89.7 ms vs . 505.5 ± 99.3 ms in those with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy negative for late enhancement vs . 486.9 ± 86.3 ms in controls, p  = 0.02). When the population was stratified into three groups in function of the normalized peak filling rate, significant differences were observed among groups for age ( p  = 0.002), mean wall thickness ( p  = 0.036), and myocardial mass ( p  = 0.046) and atrial dimensions, whereas no significant differences with respect to late enhancement were seen. Conclusions In patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, we found a significant association between ventricular filling patterns and age, wall thicknesses, and atrial dimensions, but not with the extent of late enhancement.