Relation of Thoracic Aortic Distensibility to Left Ventricular Area (From the Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis MESA)

摘要

Decreased arterial compliance is an early manifestation of adverse structural and functional changes within the vessel wall. Its correlation with left ventricular (LV) area on computed tomography (CT), a marker of LV remodeling, has not been well demonstrated. We tested the hypothesis that decreasing aortic compliance and increasing arterial stiffness is independently associated with increased LV area. The study population consisted of 3,540 (61±10 years, 46% men) from the MESA study who underwent aortic distensibility (AD) assessment on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and LV area measurement on CT (adjusted to body surface area). Multivariable logistic regression was performed to assess the association between body surface area (BSA) normalized LV area >75^th percentile and AD after adjusting for baseline clinical, historical and imaging covariates. The mean LV area /BSA was 2,153 cm² and mean AD was 1.84 mm Hg⁻¹ x10³. Subjects in the lowest AD quartile were older with higher prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia (p<0.05 for all comparisons). Using multivariate linear regression adjusting for demographics, traditional risk factors, coronary artery calcium and C-reactive protein, each standard deviation decrease was associated with 18 cm² increase in the LV area. In addition, decreasing AD quartiles were independently associated with increased BSA LV area defined as >75th percentile. In this multi-ethnic cohort, reduced AD was associated with increased LV area. Longitudinal studies are needed to determine if decreased distensibility precedes and directly influences increased LV area.