How Does Regional Hypertrophy Affect Strain Measurements With Different Speckle-Tracking Methods?

Background: In this study, we evaluate the impact of abnormal myocardial shapes, such as regional hypertrophy, on longitudinal strain measurements with different tracking approaches.

Methods: We selected 40 patients with normal ejection fraction and prominent septal bulge. We assessed longitudinal strain with full wall (FW) tracking, (GE EchoPAC) as well as endo-, mid-, and epicardial (EME) tracking (Tomtec ImageArena), on the same image acquired with a GE machine (using raw data and full frame rate DICOM data, respectively).

Impact of apical foreshortening on deformation measurements: a report from the EACVI-ASE Strain Standardization Task Force.

Aims: Foreshortening of apical views is a common problem in echocardiography. It results in an abnormally thick false apex and a shortened left ventricular (LV) long axis. We sought to evaluate the impact of foreshortened (FS) on LV ejection fraction (LVEF) and layer-specific 2D speckle tracking based segmental (S) and global (G) longitudinal strain (LS) measurements.