The association of global longitudinal and global circumferential strain with ejection fraction in patients with aortic stenosis and increased left ventricular mass: a feature tracking CMR study

Background Global longitudinal strain (GLS) and global circumferential strain (GCS) have emerged as important new markers of left ventricular (LV) function. Aortic stenosis (AS) creates pressure overload which produces LV hypertrophy and increased mass. Ejection fraction (EF) is the traditional parameter of LV systolic function, but the effects of increased LV mass on GLS and GCS are unclear. Our objectives were to: 1) assess the feasibility of a simple and novel feature-tracking speckle strain algorithm using standard CMR cine images in AS patients with CMR-derived LVEF as the reference standard for LV systolic function; 2) to assess whether left ventricular mass index (LVMI) alters the relationship between CMR-derived strain and LVEF.