Cardiac magnetic resonance in subclinical primary cardiac involvement in systemic sclerosis

Motivation: Cardiac involvement is a significant cause of mortality in SSc. There are, however, no effective methods for detecting cardiac involvement in a general, asymptomatic SSc cohort. Goal(s): We aimed to characterize and identify subclinical SSc-pHI by CMR. Approach: 48 Patients underwent CMR, including cine imaging, LGE, T2 mapping, and native and post-contrast T1 mapping for ECV quantification. Results: 56.25% of SSc-pHI patients had LGE, and 79.16% and 54.17% had native T1 and ECV above normal values. In addition, patients with dcSSc had worse contractility than patients with lcSSc, and contractile function is closely related to presence of RP, dcSSc, and ANA positive. Impact: Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging provides a reliable method for detecting sub-clinical cardiac involvement in SSC patients. Patients with dcSSc had worse contractility than patients with lcSSc, and contractile function is closely related to presence of RP, dcSSc, and ANA positive.