Beyond standard echocardiography: Strain imaging as the AI-powered key to comprehensive cardiac function evaluation

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Medical Diagnostics

Background:

• Dyspnea is a common symptom with diverse causes, including cardiac and non-cardiac origins.
• Accurate differentiation is crucial for timely and appropriate treatment.
• Distinguishing cardiac from non-cardiac dyspnea can be challenging using conventional methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the utility of left ventricular strain and left atrial strain in differentiating cardiac from non-cardiac dyspnea.
• To assess the diagnostic performance of these echocardiographic parameters.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of echocardiographic data from patients with dyspnea.
• Measurement of global longitudinal strain (GLS) of the left ventricle and left atrial strain (LAS).
• Comparison of strain parameters between patients with confirmed cardiac and non-cardiac causes of dyspnea.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in left ventricular and left atrial strain were observed between cardiac and non-cardiac dyspnea groups.
• Strain analysis demonstrated potential to improve diagnostic accuracy for cardiac dyspnea.
• Specific strain patterns may indicate underlying cardiac dysfunction.

Conclusions:

• Left ventricular and left atrial strain are promising non-invasive biomarkers for distinguishing cardiac from non-cardiac dyspnea.
• Strain echocardiography can be a valuable tool in the etiological diagnosis of dyspnea.
• Further prospective studies are warranted to confirm these findings.