Echocardiography strain: why is it used more and more?

Abstract

In the last decade, speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) has acquired a fundamental role in the evaluation of the systolic function of the left ventricle, with several advantages over the Doppler method, including angle independence, greater reproducibility, and rapidity of image acquisition. Speckle tracking finds application in various pathologies, ranging from ischaemic heart disease, to cardiomyopathies, to heart failure, both with reduced and preserved ejection fraction (EF), in which the EF is not a reliable prognostic marker and the estimate of left ventricular function by means of ‘strain’ is of crucial utility. In addition, the strain of the left atrium finds application in many clinical contexts as an early index of diastolic dysfunction and left ventricular filling pressures. Finally, the strain of the right ventricle is of particular prognostic importance in the evaluation of heart failure, particularly in its advanced form, becoming an indispensable index in the evaluation of patients who are candidates for advanced therapeutic strategies. This document aims to describe the various fields of clinical application of STE, with particular emphasis on its diagnostic and prognostic role, so much that it is now integrated into the algorithms for managing multiple pathologies in daily clinical practice.