Case report: echocardiographic deformation imaging detects left ventricular involvement in a young boy with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy.

A 16-year old boy was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy (ARVD/C) after a symptomatic event of ventricular tachycardia originating from the right ventricle (RV). Initial evaluation revealed typical signs of ARVD/C on the ECG. On ultrasound, isolated RV disease (dilatation, regions of wall motion abnormalities and aneurysms) was observed with a normal left ventricular (LV) function. However, quantification of regional deformation using Doppler-derived strain and strain-rate analysis showed abnormal systolic LV function midventricular in the posterolateral region. This corresponded to the presence of late enhancement (LE) on magnetic resonance imaging, showing LE in this very same region. This suggests that echocardiographic deformation imaging could shed light in the detection of LV involvement in ARVD/C patients.