Speckle tracking echocardiography - Quo Vadis?

Although echocardiography is a noninvasive means of visualizing the heart, quantitative and reproducible assessment of myocardial motion remains to be established. Tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) emerged in the early 1990 s as a tool to measure tissue motion velocity. For the purpose of analyzing regional myocardial motion quantitatively, the myocardial velocity gradient (MVG) across the myocardial wall was first introduced by using TDI. MVG is mathematically equal to strain rate. Initially, strain was derived as the time integral of the TDI-derived strain rate, but it revealed substantial errors of measurement, which basically arose from the confusion of Eulerian coordinates with Lagrangian coordinates in fluid dynamics. Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) has subsequently emerged as a technique that analyzes motion by tracking "speckles" on echocardiograms based on Lagrangian coordinates. Although STE-derived strain is a robust parameter of myocardial deformation, the stress-strain relationship has often been overlooked in the assessment of myocardial function. We should consider (1) blood pressure, (2) left ventricular size, and (3) left ventricular wall thickness, as well as strain. Practical means of normalizing strain by stress should be pursued in the quantitative assessment of myocardial function. Consideration of stress-strain relationships is mandatory when interpreting STE-derived strain.