Left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (DD) and myocardial scar are important contributors to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that myocardial scar is a substrate of DD and that collectively they contribute to increased risk for all-cause mortality. […]

Right ventricular (RV) failure, a determinant of outcomes in pulmonary hypertension (PH), occurs when the right ventricle cannot compensate for increased afterload. The authors showed that RV stroke work (RVSW) can be estimated in children with PH as the product of stroke volume and RV pressure and is related to adverse outcomes. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that […]

Cardioembolic stroke is a major source of mortality and disability worldwide. The authors hypothesized that quantitative characterization of intracardiac blood stasis may be useful to determine cardioembolic risk in order to personalize anticoagulation therapy. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between image-based metrics of blood stasis in the left ventricle and brain […]

Improvements in the assessment of cardiac function have led to a better understanding of the different mechanisms involved in normal left ventricular (LV) function.1 Two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography is a well-validated method to assess the rotational mechanics of the heart. Among them, the LV twist mechanism is defined by the net apex-to-base rotation difference and refers to the […]

Chronic endurance exercise is known to elicit cardiac morphologic and functional adaptations collectively known as the “athlete's heart.”1 Yet the extent to which exercise burden and other phenotypic factors dictate the extent of cardiac remodeling remains understudied. While there are significant data in younger, elite athletes, reference values for cardiac morphology in long-standing, […]

Exercise training is an important component of multidisciplinary heart failure management. However, the effects of aerobic training (AT) versus resistance training (RT) on cardiac function in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction are not well defined. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of these exercise modalities on echocardiographic parameters. […]

Therapeutic ultrasound (TUS) has been used to lyse infarct-related coronary artery thrombus. There has been no study examining the effect of TUS specifically on myocardial microthromboemboli seen in acute myocardial infarction and acute coronary syndromes. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that TUS improves myocardial blood flow (MBF) and reduces infarct size (IS) in this situation […]

Aortic dilatation carries an increased risk of aortic dissection, with high mortality and morbidity rates.1 To diagnose aortic dilatation and determine the need for preventive intervention, reliable measurement of the aortic diameter is crucial.2,3 The ascending aortic (AA) diameter can be assessed with different imaging modalities: computed tomography (CT), cardiovascular magnetic resonance […]

There are currently no therapies that can improve prognosis in cases of heart failure (HF) with preserved ejection fraction (EF). We hypothesized that there is a point of no return after which no response to treatment is noted and that for the prevention of hypertensive HF this point may be determined by left ventricle (LV) strain, in the prevention of hypertensive HF. Here an […]

Resolution of left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) obstruction predicts symptom relief postmyectomy. Intraoperative measurement of LVOT gradients thus is essential for surgical guidance. We hypothesized that (1) hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients have lower LVOT gradients when measured intraoperatively with transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) compared with preoperative measurements with […]

Since the 2007 publication of the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) guidelines for stress echocardiography,1 new information has become available about the methodology of stress echocardiography, including test protocols, standards for interpretation (including quantitative methods of assessment and application of strain rate imaging), appropriateness of testing, comparison with other […]

In patients with structurally normal atrioventricular valvular apparatus, functional regurgitation of the mitral or tricuspid valves has been attributed mainly to ventricular dilation and/or dysfunction, through a combination of annulus dilation and tethering of the valve leaflets. The occurrence of functional regurgitation of atrioventricular valves in patients with long-standing persistent […]