Echocardiographic assessment of left atrial function, including volume change and strain measurement, provides prognostic utility and helps evaluate cardiac performance in various cardiac diseases.
How does echocardiographic assessment of left atrial function contribute to understanding cardiac performance and prognosis in various cardiac diseases?
This review highlights the growing importance of echocardiographic assessment of left atrial function, particularly using speckle tracking echocardiography, for evaluating cardiac performance and prognosis in various heart diseases.
The left and right atria serve as buffer chambers to control the flow of venous blood for ventricular filling. If an atrium is absent, blood does not flow effectively into the ventricle, leading to venous blood retention and low cardiac output. The importance of atrial function has become increasingly recognized, because left atrial (LA) function contributes to cardiac performance, and loss of LA function is associated with heart failure. LA volume change has been used for LA function assessment in experimental and clinical studies. In conjunction with LA pressure, the LA pressure-volume relationship provides a better understanding of LA mechanics. LA strain measurement by speckle tracking echocardiography was introduced to evaluate three components of LA function as a (booster) pump, reservoir and conduit. Furthermore, increasing evidence supports the theory that LA reservoir strain has prognostic utility in various cardiac diseases. In this review, we summarize LA contribution to maintain cardiac performance by evaluating LA function with echocardiography according to our experiences and previous reports. Furthermore, we discuss LA dysfunction in challenging cardiac diseases of cardiac amyloidosis and adult congenital heart disease.
Inoue et al. (Sun,) conducted a review in Cardiac diseases including cardiac amyloidosis and adult congenital heart disease. Echocardiographic assessment of atrial function was evaluated. Echocardiographic assessment of left atrial function, including volume change and strain measurement, provides prognostic utility and helps evaluate cardiac performance in various cardiac diseases.