Left ventricular dyssynchrony in coronary artery disease patients without regional wall-motion abnormality: Correlation with Gensini score.

Objectives Our study investigated left ventricular dyssynchrony (LVD) in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients without regional wall-motion abnormality (RWMA) by three-dimensional echocardiography (3-DE) and explored the relationship between LVD and severity of CAD as assessed by the Gensini score (GS). Methods Sixty-one patients with a confirmed diagnosis of CAD by coronary angiography (CAG) were enrolled. We quantified LVD parameters, including the left ventricular segments (16, 12, and 6) standard deviation of the time to minimum systolic volume (TmsvSD-16, TmsvSD-12, and TmsvSD-6) and the systolic dyssynchrony index in regions 16, 12, and 6 (16R-SDI, 12R-SDI, 6R-SDI) using 3-DE. The severity of coronary atherosclerotic lesions was evaluated by the GS system on the basis of CAG findings. We further divided all patients into three groups according to the tertiles of GS: low-GS <= 20, mid-GS >20 and <= 48, and high-GS >48. The differences of LVD values among the three groups were compared, and the associations between LVD parameters and GS were analyzed. Results Coronary artery disease patients demonstrated increased LVD parameters compared with healthy controls. TmsvSD12, 16R-SDI, and 6R-SDI were prolonged in the high-GS group compared with the low- and mid-GS groups. 16R-SDI was positively correlated with the GS, and multivariate regression analysis showed that 16R-SDI was an independent predictor of the GS. 16R-SDI above 10.7% had a sensitivity of 84.21% and a specificity of 92.86% for identifying high-GS. Conclusion Three-dimensional echocardiography is a noninvasive technique to detect LVD in non-RWMA CAD patients, and the parameter 16R-SDI was significantly correlated with CAD severity.