Ectopia cordis with a double outlet right ventricle, large ventricular septal defect, malposed great arteries and left ventricular hypoplasia.

Ectopia cordis, defined as partial or complete displacement of the heart outside of the thoracic cavity, is a rare congenital malformation. If not surgically corrected during the early years of life, ectopia cordis can prove to be a fatal abnormality. However, due to the presence of multiple intracardiac and extracardiac malformations, a corrective surgery might not always be successful.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with right ventricular outflow tract and left ventricular intracavitary obstruction.

Obstruction of the right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) is a rare finding in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients unlike left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) obstruction. Although there are guidelines that aid in clinical decision making in patients with LVOT obstruction, there are none addressing RVOT obstruction. As RVOT obstruction may pose serious clinical implications similar to LVOT obstruction, appropriate medical and surgical management is very important.

Evaluation of myocardial mechanics with three-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography in heart transplant recipients: comparison with two-dimensional speckle tracking and relationship with clinical variables.

Aims: Two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) is limited by its inability to track tissue motion in three dimensions. This is particularly relevant in heart transplant recipients, in whom marked translational motion of the transplanted heart is present. We aimed to compare 3-dimensional (3D)- and 2D-STE-derived strain parameters, and to identify clinical features associated with myocardial mechanics in transplant recipients.

Left ventricular twist mechanics in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy assessed by three-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography.

Left ventricular (LV) twist represents a phenomenon that links systolic contraction with diastolic relaxation and plays a major role in cardiac physiology; thus, the study of twist mechanics is of particular interest in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HC). Three-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (3D-STE) has the potential to overcome the limitations of 2-dimensional imaging and provide a greater understanding of LV twist in HC. We aimed to examine LV twist mechanics in HC using 3D-STE.