Assessment of left atrial function using speckle tracking echocardiography in ankylosing spondylitis: a case-control study.

The aim of this study is to assess the left atrium (LA) deformation parameters by using 2D speckle tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients and to evaluate the relationship between these parameters and AS clinical indexes. 30 patients with AS (22 males, 8 females) and 30 healthy individuals (19 males, 11 females) were enrolled in this study. Transthoracic echocardiography was performed to both groups. Besides the conventional echocardiographic parameters, the LA strain parameters; including systolic-reservoir (LA S-S), early diastolic-conduit (LA S-E), late diastolic-contraction (LA S-A) were measured. No significant difference was found between two groups in terms of conventional echocardiographic parameters except mean deceleration time (DT). Mean DT was prolonged in the AS patients compare with the control group (173.5 ± 22.5 vs. 155.3 ± 36.7, p = 0.025). In the AS patients, LA S-S (48.3 ± 9.4 vs. 56.9 ± 10.1, p = 0.001), LA S-E (26.4 ± 6.4 vs. 31.6 ± 7.3, p = 0.005) and LA S-A (21.9 ± 4.7 vs. 25.4 ± 5.7, p = 0.013) values were statistically lower than the control group. Also a negative correlation was observed between the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Metrology Index (BASMI) and LA S-S (r = - 0.509, p = 0.004), LA S-E (r = - 0.501, p = 0.005). Our study demonstrated that 2D-STE is a useful method to determine the left atrial involvement in AS patients without the clinical evident of cardiovascular disease.