CMR right ventricular strain assessment using feature tracking cine images: agreement with echocardiography

Background RV ejection fraction is the recognised marker of RV function although the assessment of deformation by strain analysis provides potential means for assessing early ventricular dysfunction before other recognised markers fall. RV strain analysis by tagging is time consuming and requires significant operator expertise due to the nature of the RV anatomy (particularly the thin free wall and increased trabeculations). The potential to analyse RV strain from cine images using semi automated software to track the endocardial border now exists, feature tracking ‘FT’ (TomTec Diogenes, Germany). Our aims are to: 1. Assess the agreement between FT RV HLA view and 2D echocardiography (2DE) for global peak RV free wall longitudinal strain 2. To assess the correlation between FT derived basal peak systolic velocity and basal displacement with common markers of echocardiographic RV longitudinal performance (peak systolic S wave by tissue Doppler and tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion, TAPSE).