2- and 3-Dimensional Myocardial Strain in Cardiac Health and Disease
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Author + information
- aDepartment of Cardiovascular Diseases, University Hospital Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- bDepartment of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- cDepartment of Cardiology, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- ↵∗Address for correspondence:
Dr. Jens-Uwe Voigt, Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, University Hospital Leuven, Herestraat 49, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Central Illustration
Highlights
• Strain imaging techniques are very attractive clinical tools for the assessment of myocardial performance, providing valuable diagnostic and prognostic information.
• A proper interpretation of measurements values requires understanding of cardiac mechanics and the influence of loading conditions, geometric alterations, inhomogeneous myocardial activation, and myocardial tissue characteristics on deformation parameters.
• In the near future, a more automated image analysis will further reduce measurement variability and will increase the utilization of speckle-tracking in clinical practice.
Abstract
Advances in speckle-tracking echocardiography allowed the rise of deformation imaging as a feasible, robust, and valuable tool for clinical routine. The global or segmental measurement of strain can objectively quantify myocardial deformation and can characterize myocardial function in a novel way. However, the proper interpretation of deformation measurements requires understanding of cardiac mechanics and the influence of loading conditions, ventricular geometry, conduction delays, and myocardial tissue characteristics on the measured values. The purpose of this manuscript is to review the basic concepts of deformation imaging, briefly describe imaging modalities for strain assessment, and discuss in depth the underlying physical and pathophysiological mechanisms which lead to the respective findings in a specific disease.
Footnotes
Dr. Voigt holds a personal research mandate of the Flemish Research Council; and has received research support and consulting fees from GE, Hitachi, Philips, and Siemens. Dr. Cvijic was supported by a research grant of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging.
- Received September 10, 2018.
- Revision received January 8, 2019.
- Accepted January 31, 2019.
- 2019 American College of Cardiology Foundation
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