Third place in the competition of young cardiologists for the team from FNUSA-ICRC

The 28th annual congress of the Czech Society of Cardiology took a virtual form this year and was attended by several experts from our center. The congress also included the Competition of Young Cardiologists, where the six best doctoral theses were presented. MUDr. Lucia Masárová from the Medical Faculty of MU and the Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance research team of the FNUSA-ICRC achieved a great result, she placed third.

In her work entitled “Evaluation of left ventricular function using feature tracking in gene carriers for Duchenne muscular dystrophy”, she addressed the possibility of using advanced cardiovascular imaging methods in women who are carriers of this disease. “Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a congenital genetic defect linked to the X chromosome, so it only affects boys. There is a gradual loss of muscle mass and between the twenties and thirties they die of respiratory or heart failure, “said MUDr. Masárová. “The mothers of these boys, carriers of this gene, are at risk of myocardial disability, which increase with age and are not initially detectable by echocardiography.”

The study included 57 women, twenty of whom were healthy and their data were used as a control sample. “We used the cooperation with the organization Parent Project Czech Republic,” added MUDr. Masárová. The results of the study then showed that the use of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging could be beneficial for the early diagnosis of developing heart disease in these patients. Lower values of all global strains (an indication of the percentage by which the heart muscle shortens or thickens when contracted) were found, which indicates structural changes in the myocardium.