Myocardial mechanics: understanding and applying three-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography in clinical practice.

Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) is an emerging tool to characterize and quantify myocardial segmental and rotational mechanics. This literature review is aimed at clinical and academic cardiologists to provide: (1) a conceptual framework of STE to initiate understanding of myocardial mechanics; (2) evidence that three-dimensional (3D) STE overcomes the problems of time-consuming data acquisition and postprocessing seen with two-dimensional STE; and (3) illustrative clinical cases with analysis of myocardial mechanics via 3D STE to show the incremental value of strain in clinical decision making.