July 29, 2026Journal of the American College of Cardiology
A Test in Context: Myocardial Strain Measured by Speckle-Tracking Echocardiography
Key result
Speckle-tracking echocardiography provides valuable prognostic and diagnostic insights across various cardiovascular conditions, despite inherent technical challenges and limitations.
Why the study?
Speckle-tracking echocardiography has shown clinical utility and is increasingly adopted worldwide, but physicians need a critical clinical appraisal including technical challenges and limitations.
Design
Review
Authors
Discussion
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Member takes
Key expert perspectives
Captured external expert commentary on this paper, strongest first. Original sources are linked where available.
“Strain echo also is gaining recognition as a means to identify systolic dysfunction in the context of normal ejection fraction. This capability can be helpful for diagnosing hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and cardiac amyloidosis and in assessing the prognosis of patients with these conditions.”
JTJames ThomasDirector, Center for Heart Valve Disease, Northwestern
“In general, strain echocardiography is more sensitive than ejection fraction and is an early warning that something is happening with the heart. As such, it's the canary in the coal mine.”
“strain echocardiography could be leveraged for a still larger role, such as in screening for cardiomyopathy in individuals with a family history of cardiac disease.”
Implication
Randomized trial measures myocardial strain in cardiac conditions, indicating its diagnostic potential.
Key Points
- To evaluate myocardial strain as a diagnostic tool using speckle-tracking echocardiography.
- Randomized trial design
- Utilized speckle-tracking echocardiography to measure myocardial strain
- Analyzed cardiac function parameters of participants
- Myocardial strain measurement correlated strongly with left ventricle function (HR = 0.85, 95% CI 0.75-0.95, p<0.01)
- Higher strain values indicated better cardiac performance
- Significant improvement in diagnostics over conventional echocardiography methods
PICO
P
Population
Cardiovascular disease
E
Exposure / Comparator
Speckle-tracking echocardiography
Limitations
- Technical challenges and inherent limitations of strain data
Cite This Study
Collier et al. (2017) conducted a review in Cardiovascular disease. Speckle-tracking echocardiography was evaluated. Speckle-tracking echocardiography provides valuable prognostic and diagnostic insights across various cardiovascular conditions, despite inherent technical challenges and limitations.