Subclinical right ventricular dysfunction in fibrotic interstitial lung diseases: a combined assessment by speckle tracking and three-dimensional echocardiography

Background: Little is known about subclinical right ventricle(RV) involvement in interstitial lung disease (ILD)patients. Our study aimed at evaluating early RV dysfunction by standard and advanced echocardiography in this clinical scenario. Methods: Sixty fibrotic ILD patients, including 30 cases affected by idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis(IPF), without heart failure and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects underwent standard, speckle tracking and real time 3D echocardiography of the right ventricle. All patients also performed complete lung function testing. Results: Systolic pulmonary arterial pressure (sPAP) was significantly higher in ILD patients (with no differences between IPF and no-IPF) than in controls (p Conclusions: A subclinical RV dysfunction is detectable by speckle tracking in ILD patients. The impairment of RV GLS, RV SLS and RV LLS is more prominent in IPF patients and inversely correlates with gas transfer, despite comparable sPAP and 3D RVEF in no-IPF cases.