Acute sleep deprivation: impairment of biventricular function assesed by speckle tracking echocardiography in healthy subjects

Objectives Sleep deprivation (SD) has been found to be associated with an increased incidence of adverse cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. The aim of this study was to investigate whether or not acute SD has a pathological effect on the geometry and the systolic and diastolic functions of the right and left heart chambers by standard transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) in healthy individuals with acute SD. Methods Nurses with no history of acute or chronic diseases underwent TTE and STE after working a night shift, a sleepless period of 24 h and 7 days of normal sleep after the night shift. Measurements of TTE and STE taken in the rested state were compared with those taken after 24 h of sleep deprivation. Results The study included 52 nurses (38 women, 73%). The mean age of the study population was 27.9 ± 7.4 years and mean BMI was 24.1 ± 4.8. Left atrial reservoir (51.5 ± 13.5 vs. 45.4 ± 10; p = 0.004), conduit (− 37.3 ± 11.3 vs. − 33.6 ± 7.9; p = 0.01), left ventricular global longitudinal strain (LVGLS, − 22.6 ± 2.4 vs. − 21.3 ± 2.4; p = 0.001), right ventricular global longitudinal strain (RVGLS, − 25.3 ± 3.7 vs. − 23.5 ± 3.9; p = 0.005) and right ventricular free wall longitudinal strain (RVFWSL, − 29.1 ± 4.2 vs. − 27 ± 4.5; p = 0.001) were impaired significantly after SD. Conclusion This study is the first to investigate the negative effects of acute sleep deprivation on LV and RV strain in healthy adults using echocardiography. The findings showed that acute sleep deprivation leads to deterioration in function of both ventricles and left atrium. Speckle tracking echocardiography demonstrated subclinical diminished heart function.