Comparison of the effects of mitral regurgitation and pulmonary arterial hypertension on left atrial functions

Abstract

Aim: The left atrium (LA) is a cardiac chamber that plays a fundamental role in successful cardiac pumping function and the mortality is more frequent in patients withLA dysfunction. Both of left cardiac pathologies such as mitral regurgitation (MR) and right cardiac pathologies such as pulmonary hypertension (PHT) may cause structural and functional alteration in LA. In the present study, we examined the effects of PHT and MR on LA functions by making use of deformation parameters. Material and Methods: 58 patients followed up with diagnoses of MR (32) and PHT (28) and healthy subjects (28) having the demographical characteristics similar to those of patients were involved in the present study. The deteriorations of LAfunctions of patients, changes of affected parameters among the disease groups, and the clinical effects of these changes were examined. Results: 88 patients were involved in the present study. The mean age was 38.7±4.5 years, and 34% of the participants were male. AlthoughLA functions were found to be deteriorated in both diseases when compared to the control group in univariate analysis, the difference was found only in deformation analyses (p:0.02). In MR group, LA functions were determined to be lower than both of PHT and control group. In correlation analysis, both of the diseases were found to be significantly related with LAS and LASR. Conclusions: In the present study, we showed that both of the diseases may affect the LA functions at various levels and, when compared to conventional methods,LAS and LASR parameters can provide more accurate information about the severity of both diseases.