Comparison between Two and Three‑Dimensional Speckle‑Tracking Echocardiography and Cardiac T2* Magnetic Resonance Imaging in ß‑Thalassemia

We evaluated the accuracy of two‑dimensional speckle‑tracking echocardiography (2DSTE) and 3DSTE to identify early cardiac dysfunction in comparison with cardiac T2* magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with blood transfusion-dependent β-Thalassemia.

A total of 48 consecutive patients (36 males) successfully underwent 2DSTE, 3DSTE, and MRI on the same day. We calculated left ventricular segmental global longitudinal strain (GLS) (%) and segmental global circumferential strain (GCS) (%) from strain curves. Cardiovascular MRI was performed with the relevant protocols to measure the T2*.

In this study, we found that the GLS and GCS derived from 3DSTE correlated with cardiac T2* (r = −0.50, r = −0.49, respectively), whereas no correlation was detected between 2DSTE parameters and cardiac T2*. We calculated the area under the receiver operating characteristic area under the curve to determine the capability of 3DSTE parameters including GLS (<−23.5%) and GCS (<−33.4%) to discriminate between patients with (cardiac magnetic resonance T2* <20 ms) and those without myocardial iron overload.

The study will clarify GLS and GCS’s superiority derived from 3DSTE over the 2DSTE parameters in the detection of myocardial iron overload in patients with blood transfusion-dependent β-Thalassemia.