Left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction, most commonly assessed with two-dimensional echocardiography, is an important prognostic determinant of many cardiovascular diseases. The decision of implanting specific cardiovascular devices, such as cardiac resynchronization therapy or implantable cardioverter defibrillator, recommending valvular surgery or chemotherapy relies on the LV ejection fract...

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a syndrome in which pulmonary arterial obstruction increases pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) leading to right ventricle (RV) failure. Progression and survival of patients with PAH are related to the ability of the RV to adapt to the chronically elevated pulmonary artery pressure (PAP), 1) hence, RV function is an important determinant of prognosis in...

BACKGROUND The role of speckle tracking in the assessment of left atrial (LA) deformation dynamics is not established. We sought to determine the feasibility and reference ranges of LA longitudinal strain indices measured by speckle tracking in a population of normal subjects. METHODS In 60 healthy individuals, peak atrial longitudinal strain (PALS) and time to peak longitudinal strain (TPLS)...

BACKGROUND Infarct size is a strong predictor of mortality and major adverse cardiovascular events after myocardial infarction. Acute reperfusion therapy limits infarct size and improves survival, but its use has been confined to patients with ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between echocardiographic parameters of left ventric...

BACKGROUND Speckle Tracking Echocardiography (STE) strain analysis relies on both spatial and temporal smoothing. The user is often allowed to adjust these smoothing parameters during analysis. This experimental study investigates how different degrees of user controllable spatial and temporal smoothing affect global and regional STE strain values in recordings obtained from normal and ischemic...

AIMS To study the distribution of longitudinal systolic strain and strain rate (SR) as indicators of myocardial deformation according to age and sex in a healthy population. METHODS AND RESULTS Longitudinal strain and SR were determined in 1266 healthy individuals from three standard apical views, using a combination of speckle tracking (ST) and tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) to track regions o...