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Updated: Jan 21, 2026

Myocardial Infarction and Functional Outcome Assessment in Pigs
Published on: April 25, 2014
Fast manual long-axis strain assessment provides optimized cardiovascular event prediction following myocardial
Andreas Schuster1,2,3, Sören J Backhaus1,2, Thomas Stiermaier4,5
1Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, Georg-August University, University Medical Center Göttingen, Robert-Koch-Str. 40, Göttingen, Germany.
Aims:
Cardiovascular magnetic resonance feature tracking (CMR-FT) global longitudinal strain (GLS) provides incremental prognostic value following acute myocardial infarction (AMI) but requires substantial post-processing. Alternatively, manual global long-axis strain (LAS) can be easily assessed from standard steady state free precession images. We aimed to define the prognostic value of LAS in a large multicentre study in patients following AMI.
Methods And Results:
A total of 1235 patients with myocardial infarction [n = 795 with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and 440 with non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI)] underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging after primary percutaneous coronary intervention in eight centres across Germany. Assessment of LAS was performed in a blinded core-laboratory measuring the systolic shortening between the epicardial apical border and the middle of a line connecting the origins of the mitral leaflets. Primary clinical endpoint was the occurrence of major adverse clinical events (MACE) including death, reinfarction, and congestive heart failure within 1 year after AMI. During 1-year follow-up, 76 patients suffered from MACE. Impaired LAS was associated with higher MACE occurrence both in STEMI (P < 0.001) and NSTEMI (P = 0.001) patients. Association of LAS remained significant (P = 0.017) after correction for univariate significant parameters for MACE prediction. C-statistics revealed incremental value of additional LAS assessment for optimized event prediction compared with left ventricular ejection fraction (MACE P = 0.044; mortality P = 0.013) and a combination of established clinical and imaging parameters (MACE P = 0.084; mortality P = 0.027), but not CMR-FT GLS (MACE P = 0.075; mortality P = 0.380).
Conclusion:
LAS provides software independent, widely available, easy and fast approximation of longitudinal left ventricular shortening early after reperfused AMI with incremental prognostic value beyond established risk stratification parameters.
Clinical Trials.Gov:
NCT00712101 and NCT01612312.
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