Abstract #3562

Cardiac Torsion and Strain in Fatigued Primary Biliary Cirrhosis Patients Investigated by 3T Cardiac Tagging Show Evidence of Accelerated Ageing Processes

Kieren Grant Hollingsworth¹, David Emerys Jones², Roy Taylor¹, Guy A. MacGowan³, Julia Lindsay Newton⁴, Andrew Mark Blamire¹

¹Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom; ²Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom; ³Cardiology, Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom; ⁴Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is an autoimmune liver disease affecting females from middle age. After our previous observation that PBC patients have impaired cardiac energetics compared to matched controls while preserving normal cardiac morphology, the same cohort was studied with cardiac tagging at 3T to assess cardiac torsion and strain. Those PBC patients with severe fatigue were found to have significant increases in myocardial peak torsion and reduction in peak strain which have previously been seen to be typical of healthy ageing. This suggests that cardiac changes in fatigued PBC patients may reflect an accelerated ageing process.