Assessment Of Left Ventricular Systolic Function In Patients With Dilated Cardiomyopathy Using Speckle Tracking Echocardiograohy

Objective This study was performed to evaluate the systolic function in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy by measurement of left ventricular strain in short-axis using speckle tracking echocardiography. The feasibility and accuracy of left ventricular function were evalutated by circumferential strain as well as radial strain after the change of left ventricular geometric patterns.Methods Two-dimensional echocardiographic images of three consecutive cardiac cycles were acquired from the left ventricular short-axis views at the mitral annulus papillary musele level and apical levels of left ventricle in 15 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and 35 healthy subjects. The peak systolic circumferential strain (CS) and radial strain (RS) were measured in the 18 standard segments from left ventricular short-axis views using Qlab6.0 work station software.Results Compared with healthy subjects, all parameters such as circumferential strain and radial strain in dilated cardiomyopathy were statistically significantly lower than those in the Healthy Normal Subjects (P<0.05). In DCM patients, the motion of left ventricular segments registered as diffusely reduced, and the radial strain and circumferential strain showed no significant differences at different levels of short-axis views in left ventricular (P>0.05)Conclusion Speckle tracking imaging technique could measure circumferential strain and radial strain of left ventricular in patients with DCM, and independent of insonation angle, it would provide a new method to clinically evaluate the whole or regional LV myocardial systolic function in DCM cases.