Assessment of strain and strain rate by two-dimensional speckle tracking in mice: comparison with tissue Doppler echocardiography and conductance catheter measurements.

Abstract

This study was designed in order to compare the strain and strain rate deformation parameters assessed by speckle tracking imaging (STI) with those of tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) and conductance catheter measurements in chronic murine models of left ventricular (LV) dysfunction. Twenty-four male C57BL/6J mice were assigned to wild-type (n = 8), myocardial infarction (n = 8) and transaortic constriction (n = 8) groups. Echocardiographic and conductance measurements were simultaneously performed at rest and during dobutamine infusion (5 μg/kg/min) in all animals 10 weeks post-surgery. The LV circumferential strain (Scirc) and the strain rate (SRcirc) were derived from grey scale and tissue Do..