Evaluation of left ventricle global longitudinal strain and right ventricle strain and coronary sinus flow parameters in Behçet's patients

Behçet's Disease (BD) is a chronic systemic disease with oral aphtha, genital ulcer, uveitis and neurological involvement. BD is a condition characterized by vasculitis and potential cardiac involvement. In this study, individuals with BD were evaluated using transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) to investigate the presence and degree of cardiac involvement by comparing coronary sinus flow and left/right ventricular functions with those of the normal population. A total of 71 patients were included in the study: 34 in the normal group and 37 in the BH group. Patients with DM, HT, and CAD were excluded. The ECG, clinical, TTE, and demographic characteristics of the groups were similar. Among the parameters examined to assess right ventricular function; S, TAPSE, FAC, RV Strain, RVEF, no statistically significant differences were found between the BH group and the normal population. Regarding coronary sinus flow (CSF), the following parameters were analyzed: coronary sinus (CS) diameter (p=0.003) and CS VTI(p=0.015). Both showed statistically significant reductions in the BH group compared to the normal population. Additionally, CSF Stroke (p<0.001), CSF (p<0.001), and CSFindex (p<0.001) were significantly decreased in BH patients, indicating reduced coronary perfusion. For left ventricular (LV) function, strain analysis was performed. While GLS-4C(p=0.081) and GLS-2C(p=0.37) did not differ significantly between the BD group and the normal population, GLS-L(p=0.044) and GLS(p=0.049) showed statistically significant differences. Two out of the four LV strain parameters studied were significantly reduced in BD patients, suggesting partial functional impairment of the LV. As expected, there was a high positive correlation between LV strain values (r=0.825, p<0.001) and coronary sinus values (r=0.729, p<0.001). Furthermore, CSFindex exhibited a low positive correlation with GLS-L (r=0.254, p=0.034) and GLS (r=0.275, p=0.02). Notably, the moderate positive correlation between CSFindex and GLS (r=0.275, p=0.02) is a novel finding. In summary, this study provides insights into cardiac involvement in BD patients, emphasizing reduced coronary perfusion and partial LV functional impairment. These correlated values were tested with Regression. CSFindex has statistically explained GLS-GLS-L for a small but significant sample ROC analysis has been conducted to explore predictive values for distinguishing BD's from the normal population but the area undur curve, sensitivity and specificity have not been repored.