Speckle Tracking Echocardiography & Valvular Heart Disease

Abstract

Recent advances in quantitative ultrasound technology have made speckle-tracking echocardiography an effective method for measuring myocardial function by analyzing the motion of speckles seen on standard 2-dimensional sonograms. It offers objective, non-Doppler quantification of left ventricular systolic and diastolic dynamics as well as myocardial deformation.  After a sufficient amount of image acquisition, strain and the strain rate can be quickly determined offline by tracking the displacement of the speckles throughout the cardiac cycle. Speckle-tracking echocardiography has been shown to be feasible, accurate, and useful in a variety of clinical settings.    The foundation of speckle-tracking echocardiography is the analysis of the spatial dislocation, or "tracking," of speckles, which are spots produced by the interaction of the ultrasound beam and myocardial fibres on standard 2-dimensional sonograms. Speckle-tracking echocardiography enables semi-automated elaboration of myocardial deformation in three spatial directions: longitudinal, radial, and circumferential by monitoring the displacement of speckles throughout the cardiac cycle. Additionally, left ventricle (LV) rotation's frequency, direction, and velocity can be assessed using speckle-tracking echocardiography