Speckle Tracking Echocardiography for Global Longitudinal Strain—Have Modern Strain Packages Improved Reproducibility?

ABSTRACT Introduction Speckle tracking strain imaging has become a routine part of echocardiography. However, despite the efforts of multiple associations and industry, there has been variation in results between vendors. We aimed to determine if modern strain analysis yielded results with improved reproducibility. Methods Participants underwent echocardiography on three different ultrasound machines: GE E95, Philips CVx and Mindray M9. Global longitudinal strain (GLS) was calculated on each system and on vendor‐independent software TOMTEC. Absolute and relative differences in GLS were calculated. Results Of the 50 participants, GLS values were similar from each software (GE EchoPAC = −20.1% ± 2.0%, Mindray on‐cart Tissue Tracking QA‐LV = −19.7% ± 2.7%, Philips AutoStrain LV = −19.3% ± 2.8%, TOMTEC Autostrain GE images = −20.1% ± 2.6% and TOMTEC Autostrain Mindray images −19.8% ± 2.8%). All strain software analysis had moderate to excellent correlation. Furthermore, all GLS results had a < 1% absolute difference and < 10% relative difference between each other. Conclusion This study demonstrates that the performance of commercially available strain software is similar and may be interchanged for serial follow up of patients; however, this relies on having the most updated software version available.