VALUE OF EPICARDIAL ADIPOSE TISSUE ASSESSMENT BY CARDIAC COMPUTERIZED TOMOGRAPHY IN HEART FAILURE PATIENTS WITH PRESERVED EJECTION FRACTION

Objectives: A major problem that increases the morbidity and mortality is Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF)in comparison toheart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Adipose tissue and the linked inflammation were shown to contribute in HF pathogenesis and constitute a unique phenotype of HF. HFpEF patients tend to be obese. So, we aimed to assess the epicardial adipocytes (EAT) noninvasively by measuring the volume of EATthroughComputerizedtomography (CT) among HFpEFpatients and correlates it with echocardiographic diastolic dysfunction measures. Study design: We enrolled 76 participants divided into two groups: 38 patients with HFpEF with LVEF > 50% on echocardiography and 38 controls at outpatient clinic and a radiology department at National Heart Institute. All included participants had noninvasive assessment of the epicardial adipose tissue volume using cardiac CT. Results: Regarding Baseline Demographic characteristics, mean age (SD) of participants:57.45 (6.0) with high prevalence of risk factors (DM, Dyslipidemia, smoking) among HFpEF patients with no significant difference statistically among groups. Also, asiginificant difference statistically was found amongthe enrolled groups regarding echocardiographic findings (LVEF%, Mean E/e`ratio, est. LVEDP and Tricuspid Regurge V). The epicardial fat Volume was significantly high at HFpEF group (P < 0.001). Conclusions: We found that high grade diastolic dysfunction was associated with epicardial fat that appeared to be greater in HFpEF patients. As a result, we found that epicardial fat could be used as a different marker for both HFpEF and diastolic dysfunction.