Role of noninvasive imaging with reference to speckle-tracking echocardiography

The increasing prevalence (estimated at 825,000 new cases annually in the United States) of chronic heart failure (CHF) urgently requires the establishment of new imaging techniques for early diagnosis and also to guide treatment of patients presented with acute coronary syndromes and patients at increasing risk of heart failure (HF). The main aim of this review was to summarize the latest imaging techniques in HF early diagnosis and proper management. Advanced cardiac imaging, following technological advances, has progressed significantly and it now serves as a major diagnostic, as well as, a prognostic tool. Patients with CHF demand constant follow-up with baseline imaging such as echocardiography or more advanced imaging such as stress imaging. Imaging guides treatment as well as interventional procedures for the improvement of the prognosis of patients with HF. This review is related to new and novel insights into the assessment of cardiac function at the preclinical stage and in patients with CHF by echocardiography and allied techniques. Left ventricular (LV) global longitudinal strain (GLS) is recently recognized as a more sensitive measure of LV myocardial systolic function compared with LV ejection fraction (LVEF). In addition, LV GLS and myocardial performance index are more reproducible than the traditional assessment of LV systolic function by (2DE) LVEF.