systolic longitudinal function of the left ventricle assessed by speckle tracking in heart failure patients with preserved ejection fraction

background: echocardiographic evaluations of the longitudinal axis of the left ventricular (lv) function have been used in the diagnosis and assessment of heart failure with normal ejection fraction (hfnef). the evaluation of the global and segmental peak systolic longitudinal strains (pslss) by two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (ste) may correlate with conventional echocardiography findings. we aimed to use ste to evaluate the longitudinal function of the lv in patients with hfnef. methods: in this study, 126 patients with hfnef and diastolic dysfunction and 60 normal subjects on conventional echocardiography underwent ste evaluations, including lv end-diastolic and end-systolic dimensions; interventricular septal thickness; posterior wall thickness;  lv volume; lv ejection fraction; left atrial volume index; early diastolic peak flow velocity (