Increased Left Ventricular Torsion in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Mutation Carriers with Normal Wall Thickness

Iris Rssel¹, Wessel Brouwer¹, Tjeerd Germans¹, Paul Knaapen¹, J Tim Marcus¹, Jolanda van der Velden¹, Marco Gtte¹, Albert van Rossum¹

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is caused by mutations in mainly sarcomeric genes. Increased left ventricular (LV) torsion has been observed in patients with manifest hypertrophy, but abnormalities in myocardial contractility might already be present in HCM mutation carriers with normal wall thickness. Therefore, LV torsion and endocardial circumferential strain were studied in HCM mutation carriers using MRI tagging. Increased LV torsion and torsion to endocardial circumferential strain-ratio were found in carriers with respect to controls. The observed difference might be due to HCM-related endocardial myocardial dysfunction.