Early Diastolic Dysfunction in Patients With Septic Shock and Its Association With the Presence of Cardiomyopathy Genetic Variants

Sepsis is a life-threatening infection with increasing incidence, and its spectrum of disease can involve cardiac dysfunction, which further adds to mortality. Although cardiac involvement in sepsis has been classically attributed to systolic dysfunction, diastolic dysfunction is increasingly diagnosed due to new echocardiographic techniques and the conceptual evolution of diastolic dysfunction. Combining systolic and diastolic dysfunction assessment could lead to a better diagnosis of septic cardiac dysfunction. Furthermore, earlier forms of septic cardiac dysfunction could be more promptly recognized by measuring novel and less used parameters of diastolic dysfunction. We hypothesize that left atrium (LA) strain and isovolumetric relaxation time (IVRT) derived intervals could be new and earlier predictors of diastolic dysfunction in septic patients with a potential impact on clinical presentation and prognosis and that rare genetic variation associated with inherited cardiomyopathies could underline the risk and severity of sepsis-related myocardial dysfunction with potential impact on diagnosis and prognosis.