Speckle-Tracking: Incremental Role in Diastolic Assessment of Pediatric Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease.

Background: Cardiovascular complications are the leading cause of mortality in pediatric patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Echocardiographic assessment of diastolic function in CKD has been limited to spectral and tissue Doppler imaging, known to be less reliable techniques in pediatrics. Two-dimensional Speckle tracking echocardiography (2DST) derived left atrial (LA) strain has recently been confirmed as a robust measure of diastolic function.
Objectives: To investigate LA strain role in diastolic assessment of children at different stages of CKD.
Methods: From February 2019 to July 2022, 55 CKD patients without cardiovascular symptoms and 55 controls were evaluated by standard and 2DST echocardiograms. The level of significance was set at 5% (p<0.05).
Results: Patients and controls had similar age [9.78 (0.89 - 17.54) vs. 10.72 (1.03 -18,44) years; p = 0.41] and gender (36M:19F vs. 34M:21F; p=0.84). There were 25 non-dialysis patients and 30 dialysis patients. Left ventricular ejection fraction was ≥ 55% in all of them. Comparing CKD and controls, LA reservoir strain was lower (48.22±10.62% vs. 58.52±10.70%) and LA stiffness index was higher [0.14 (0.08-0.48)%-1 vs. 0.11 (0.06-0.23) %-1]; p<0.0001. LV hypertrophy was associated with lower LA reservoir strain (42.05±8.74% vs. 52.99±9.52%), higher LA stiffness [0.23(0.11 - 0.48)%-1 vs. 0.13 (0.08-0.23) %-1 and filling indexes (2.39±0.63 cm/s x %-1 vs. 1.74±0.47 cm/s x %-1; p<0.0001. Uncontrolled hypertension was associated with lower LA reservoir strain (41.9±10.6% vs. 50.6±9.7; p=0.005).
Conclusions: LA strain proved to be a feasible tool in the assessment of pediatric CKD patients and was associated with known cardiovascular risk factors.