Clinical InvestigationLeft Atrial Strain Measured by Two-Dimensional Speckle Tracking Represents a New Tool to Evaluate Left Atrial Function
Section snippets
Patients
We retrospectively examined images from healthy volunteers who were examined in our echocardiographic laboratory from 2005 to 2006. Subjects were declared healthy after undergoing thorough medical histories and physical examinations. All subjects had normal findings on resting electrocardiography and baseline echocardiography. All subjects gave written informed consent before their participation. A previous work describing LV ε using this same database was recently published.13
We identified 97
Subject Characteristics
Population characteristics are summarized in Table 1. Subjects presented with normal blood pressures and heart rates. The 2D echocardiographic characteristics are depicted in Table 1, including chamber dimensions and measurements of LV diastolic and systolic function. All were within normal reference values. LA volumes and indexes of LA function are described in Table 2.
LA ε and SR Values and Correlations With Age
Adequate tracking of LA wall was possible in 872 of 930 analyzed segments (93.8%). Global LA εpos peak was 21.4 ± 6.7% and
Discussion
This study demonstrated the feasibility of performing LA ε analysis, which derived 3 different parameters (global LA εneg peak, LA εpos peak, and LA εtot) that may be used to evaluate the contractile, conduit, and reservoir components of LA function. Similarly, we also described 3 components of LA SR (global LA SRlate neg peak, SRearly neg peak, and SRpos peak) that may also be useful to analyze LA function. We also demonstrated that each of these parameters correlated with Doppler-derived
Conclusions
The measurement of LA ε is feasible, and reference values are provided. It was possible to evaluate the 3 components of LA function using this new technology, and the values provided correlated with traditional echocardiographic indexes used to evaluate LA conduit, contractile, and reservoir function. Further studies are warranted to determine the value of this new tool to evaluate LA function in disease states and its potential value to identify patients at risk for LA failure or arrhythmias.
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