1st Department and Chair of Cardiology, Bieganski Hospital, Medical University, Łódź, Poland.
Department of Medical Biotechnologies, Division of Cardiology, University of Siena, Siena, Italy.
Kardiol Pol. 2021;79(9):955-964. doi: 10.33963/KP.a2021.0105.
The speckle-tracking technique has become an easily accessible, quick-to-use, and straightforward tool for assessing advanced myocardial function. Achievements in the analysis of the left atrium have demonstrated that it plays an important role in the physiology and pathophysiology of the circulatory system. Deformation analysis allows the detection of even subtle functional abnormalities when atrial enlargement is not yet detected. Thus, left atrial strain has a documented diagnostic and prognostic value in many clinical scenarios. Furthermore, this technique is increasingly entering routine clinical practice. The analysis becomes possible thanks to new tools that simplify the speckle-tracking assessment. Left atrial strain improves diagnostic possibilities of standard echocardiographic examination, and its diagnostic and prognostic value is sometimes comparable with more advanced and less available techniques. In this review, we discuss the principles of performing strain analysis and the results of current research, and thus the potential possibilities of sophisticated atrial assessment application in various clinical scenarios.
斑点追踪技术已成为评估心肌功能的一种易于获取、快速使用和简单的工具。对左心房分析的成就表明，它在循环系统的生理学和病理生理学中起着重要作用。应变分析可以在尚未检测到心房扩大时检测到甚至细微的功能异常。因此，左心房应变在许多临床情况下具有明确的诊断和预后价值。此外，该技术正越来越多地进入常规临床实践。得益于简化斑点追踪评估的新工具，该分析成为可能。左心房应变提高了标准超声心动图检查的诊断可能性，其诊断和预后价值有时可与更先进但可用性较低的技术相媲美。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了应变分析的原理和当前研究结果，以及在各种临床情况下应用复杂心房评估的潜在可能性。
