BACKGROUND A number of myocardial Doppler-derived velocity, strain myocardial imaging parameters (DMI) and speckle tracking imaging (STI) have been proposed for the quantification of myocardial ischemia during stress echocardiography. The purpose of the study was to identify the best single ultrasound quantitative parameter for prediction of significant coronary stenosis and compare it with vis...

Objective: To investigate whether persistent ischaemic dysfunction of the myocardium after dynamic stress can be diagnosed from changes in ultrasonic strain rate and strain. Design: Prospective observational study, with age matched controls. Setting: University hospital. Patients and methods: 26 patients (23 men, mean (SD) age 58.9 (8.1) years) with coronary artery disease but no infarction and...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether persistent ischaemic dysfunction of the myocardium after dynamic stress can be diagnosed from changes in ultrasonic strain rate and strain. DESIGN Prospective observational study, with age matched controls. SETTING University hospital. PATIENTS AND METHODS 26 patients (23 men, mean (SD) age 58.9 (8.1) years) with coronary artery disease but no infarction a...

Echocardiography can give insight in both global as well as regional myocardial function. Fractional shortening and ejection fraction are well-known parameters for a considerable period of time for assessing left ventricular (LV) systolic function. However, these parameters only measure global systolic function. Using Tissue Doppler Imaging (TDI) allows assessment of both global as well as regi...

AIM Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) is an asymptomatic condition defined by increased serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) with normal free thyroid hormone levels. Heart is a major target organ for thyroid hormone action. The aim of this study was to evaluate cardiac functions in patients with SH by speckle tracking imaging. PATIENTS AND METHODS We included 23 consecutive patients with unt...

Dyslipidemia and obesity are considered strong risk factors for premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and increased morbidity and mortality and may have a negative impact on myocardial function. Our purpose was to assess the presence of early myocardial deformation abnormalities in dyslipidemic children free from other cardiovascular risk factors, using 2-dimensional speckle tracking...

BACKGROUND Heart ventricular dysfunction has been characterized as reduced longitudinal function of the right ventricle (RV), and is associated with chronic alcohol abuse. This study investigated the use of two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2DSTE) to assess the longitudinal systolic and diastolic RV function of patients with alcoholic myocardial damage. METHODS We stratified ...

BACKGROUND Tissue Doppler echocardiography-derived strain rate and strain measurements (SDE) are new quantitative indices of intrinsic cardiac deformation. The aim of this study was to validate and compare these new indices of regional cardiac function to measurements of 3-dimensional myocardial strain by tagged MRI. METHODS AND RESULTS The study population included 33 healthy volunteers, 17 ...

BACKGROUND Noninvasive indices based on Doppler echocardiography are increasingly used in clinical cardiovascular research to evaluate left ventricular global systolic chamber function. Our objectives were to clinically validate ultrasound-based methods of global systolic chamber function to account for differences between patients in conditions of abnormal load, and to assess their sensitivity...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to test myocardial deformation imaging using speckle-tracking echocardiography for predicting outcomes in chronic aortic regurgitation. BACKGROUND In chronic aortic regurgitation, left ventricular (LV) dysfunction must be detected early to allow timely surgery. Speckle-tracking echocardiography has been proposed for this purpose, but the clinical value of ...