Left atrial strain in patients with arterial hypertension early effects of arterial hypertension: left atrial deformation analysis by two- dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography

Arterial hypertension (HtN) is one of the common diseases associated with the increased incidence of heart failure 1, 2 and is one of the independent risk factors for atrial fibrillation (AF) 3, 4 through perpetual structural and functional changes in the left atrium (LA) 5. Hypertensive cardiopathy starts in the left ventricle (LV) 6 while ejection fraction (eF) is still maintained 7. subsequently, progressive deterioration of diastolic and systolic function occur as a reflection of long term afterload, despite not easily detected by conventional echocardiographic methods 8, 9. speckle tracking echocardiography (ste) is a novel nonDoppler-based technique for objective quantification of myocardial deformation which reflects intrinsic myocardial function 10-12. Recent developments allowed ste to quantify longitudinal LA myocardial deformation dynamics, confering new insight into LA function analysis 13-16. However, our knowledge on the use of ste in early detection of LA dysfunction in patients with systemic hypertension remains limited.