C a r d io p u l m o n a r y I m ag i ng • O r ig i n a l R e s e a rc hThis article is available for credit. This research was financially supported by Project "DoIT," which is cofinanced by the European Community Fund FEDER through COMPETE. rosis [10], which can be detected noninvasively by MDCT.Coronary artery disease is commonly cited as a mechanism underlying diastolic dysfunction [11]. Many of the same factors that contribute to atherosclerosis may also produce LV diastolic dysfunction by either direct mechanisms (e.g., hypertension and age-related vascular stiffening) or secondarily via coronary artery disease progression and resulting changes in myocardial compliance [11].There are limited and controversial published data on the relationship of CAC to LV diastolic function. Edvardsen et al. [12] reported that coronary atherosclerosis is associated with depressed regional LV systolic and diastolic wall strain measured by MRI tagging. Colletti et al. [13] found that a CAC score greater than 100 predicts an increased likelihood of clinically unsuspected LV regional wall motion abnormalities, which are C ardiovascular disease is the most frequent cause of death and disability in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2). DM2 is responsible for diverse cardiovascular complications such as increased coronary atherosclerosis and left ventricular (LV) dysfunction. LV diastolic dysfunction is highly prevalent in DM2 [1,2], representing the earliest preclinical manifestation of LV dysfunction in patients with this condition [3][4][5][6].Over the past decade, cardiac MRI has been widely accepted as the reference standard for the assessment of cardiac structure and function because of its high spatial and temporal resolution, excellent image quality, and lack of geometric assumptions [7]. Cardiac MRI offers a variety of alternative approaches for evaluating diastolic function [8,9].The presence of coronary artery calcium (CAC) is indicative of coronary atheroscle-OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to compare cardiac MRI-derived parameters of left ventricular (LV) diastolic function between uncomplicated type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) and normoglycemic control subjects and to evaluate whether these parameters of LV diastolic function are related to coronary atherosclerosis.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS.We prospectively studied 41 subjects with DM2 and 21 normoglycemic control subjects (30 women and 32 men; mean age, 57.2 ± 7.1 [SD] years) with no evidence of overt cardiovascular disease. We used cardiac MRI to measure LV volumes, LV peak filling rate (PFR), and transmitral flow and CT to determine coronary artery calcium scores.RESULTS. Absolute values of the peak filling rate (PFR) were significantly lower in DM2 patients than in control subjects (mean ± SD, 293.2 ± 51.7 vs 375.7 ± 102.8 mL/s, respectively; p < 0.001). Mitral peak E velocities (mean ± SD, 42.8 ± 10.7 vs 48.8 ± 10.4 cm/s; p = 0.040) and peak E velocity-to-peak A velocity ratios (0.88 ± 0.3 vs 1.1 ± 0.3; p = 0.002) were also lower in DM2 patients com...