The aim of this study was to describe the left ventricular (LV) shape and its deformation during the cardiac cycle in extremely low and very low birth weight preterm at 1-3 days of age compared to term infants using functional geometry (FG) and geometric morphometrics (GM) methods. Based on 2D echocardiographic images, characteristics of the shape and deformation of the LV during the cardiac cycle were obtained in term newborns (n=27, gestational age 38-40 weeks,birth weight 3200-3700 g) and preterm newborns (n=19,gestational age 26-31 weeks, birthweight 500-1500 g). LV shape and spatio-temporal heterogeneity of LV wall motion throughout the cardiac cycle were evaluated by FG methods. We also obtained cardiac shape descriptors using GM framework, which allowed us to focus solely on inter-patient differences in shape changes associated with the cardiac cycle. Statistically significant differences between groups were observed in LV wall motion spatial heterogeneity (higher in preterm), the sphericity (lower in preterm) and shape complexity (higher in preterm) in late diastole, the first two components of the shape space obtained by GM. Thus we have demonstrated pronounced differences in shape change dynamics between term and preterm infants which can be further tackled and investigated in the GM framework.
This work was supported by Russian Science Foundation Grant # 24-25-20110