Straining to justify strain measurement.

A broad array of cardiac imaging research and technique development has been deployed in the quest to define the earliest myocardial changes of cardiomyopathy so that earlier detection may afford more timely institution of therapy and improved outcomes. Recognition that high-resolution measures of myocardial deformation can be abnormal before global contractile dysfunction has further fueled development of techniques such as speckle tracking, myocardial tagging, displacement-encoded