Persistent cardiac dysfunction on echocardiography in African American women with severe preeclampsia

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and preeclampsia both disproportionally affect African American women. Evidence continues to grow linking a history of preeclampsia to future CVD. Therefore, we sought to determine whether abnormalities in cardiac function, as determined by echocardiography, could be identified at the time of preeclampsia diagnosis in African American women, and if they persist into the early postpartum period.

Study design: This prospective blinded longitudinal cohort study was performed from April 2015 to May 2017. We identified African American women diagnosed with preterm (<37 weeks) preeclampsia with severe features and compared them to control normotensive pregnant women matched on race, gestational age, maternal age, and body mass index. We obtained transthoracic echocardiograms on cases and controls at time of diagnosis and again 4-12 weeks postpartum. We quantified the systolic function with longitudinal strain, ventricular-arterial coupling parameters and diastolic function.

Results: There were 29 matched (case-control) pairs of African American women for a total of 58 women. At time of preeclampsia diagnosis, there was more abnormal cardiac function as evidenced by worse cardiac systolic function (longitudinal strain), increased chamber stiffness (end systolic elastance), and worse diastolic function (E/e') in preeclampsia cases compared to controls. These findings persisted 4-12 weeks postpartum. There were additional notable abnormalities in E/A, and Ea (arterial load) postpartum, indicative of potentially worse diastolic function and increased arterial stiffness in the postpartum period.

Conclusions: Among African American women, we found notable cardiac function differences between women with severe preeclampsia and healthy pregnant controls that persist postpartum.